J 




GassJL 



L 



!w Book , Ct .0 /- 




c^"P'tc^>^-^^ 




. ..-^ 



/ « ^ 



/ 



THE 



ENGLISHMAN II KANSAS: 



^qeittr f ift ani §orbtr Marfare. 



T. H. GLADSTONE, ESQ., 

AUTHOR OF THE LETTKR3 FROM KANSAS IX THE " LONDOX TIMES. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 

IJY 

FRED. LAW OLMSTED, 

AUTHOR OF "a JOURNEY IN THE SEADOARD SLAVE STATES," 
" A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS," ETC. 



NEW YORK: 

MILLER & COMPANY, 321 BROADWAY, 
Late Dix, Edwards & Co. 

1857. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

FRED. LAW OLMSTED, 

In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



Miller & Company, 
Printers and Publishers, N. Y. 



AMERICAN EDITOR'S 

INTRODUCTION. 



Having been requested to edit and intro- 
duce an American edition of this English book, 
I have thought I could best serve a public pur- 
pose by examining and setting forth its value 
and purport as evidence and intelligent Euro- 
pean commentary upon the present exciting 
questions of our politics. 

Mr. Gladstone, a kinsman of the distin- 
guished ex-chancellor of the Exchequer of 
England, visited Kansas, at a moment of inter- 
est in its history, and in the history of our 
country. Ilis opportunities of obtaining trust- 
worthy information were good, and he appears 
to have used them calmly and diligently. As 
a foreigner, with claims of friendship, or even 



iV AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

acquaintance, upon no one in the temtory, 
except Colonel Sumner, who, as the military 
representative of the federal authority, was 
respected by both parties, he occupied a neu- 
tral position in their warfiire. 

Going back of these circumstances, I find 
that Mr. Gladstone arrived in New York near 
the beginning of the year 1850, with the ordi- 
nary motives of an English traveler of his class. 
From all I can learn of those who knew him 
here, his testimony on any subject should be re- 
ceived with particular respect. He is thought 
to observe closely and accurately, to study 
carefully, and to be slow in expressing the 
conclusions of his judgment, lie is not known 
to have had, at this time, more knowledge of, or 
interest in, American politics, than is common 
among English conservative gentlemen — about 
as much, that is to say, as is common among 
us with regard to the affairs of Sweden or 
Brazil. 

He proceeded, very soon after his arrival, to 
Washington, and thence further south, and, 
during the winter, enjoyed the hospitality of 
South Carolina and Mississippi. In the spring 



he continued his journey through Missouri, and 
so, finally, to Kansas, arriving at Leavenworth 
city on the 21st of May. 

Our whole country was then hotly engaged 
in the presidential canvass. So great was the 
tumult in Kansas, and such was the temptation 
upon our editors and newsmongers to disallow 
or exaggerate the conflicting reports of its con- 
dition, according as their influence was likely 
to be favorable, or otherwise, to the success 
of one or another candidate, that it became, 
and has continued to be, very difticult for a 
cautious mind, not possessing private means 
of information, to form a confident judgment, 
first, as to the reality or extent of the alleired 
calamity of Kansas, and second, as to the abso- 
lute or rehitive culpability of either of the con- 
tending parties. 

Readers, who have been accustomed to hear 
the *' disturbances" in Kansas spoken of only 
as such as are " incidental to all new settle- 
ments," will, perhaps, be inclined to set down 
this calmly observant traveler as an impostor, 
or a romancer, when they find him describing 
the condition of the territory, upon his arrival, as 



Vi AMERICAN EDITOR'S IXTRODUCTION. 

" a holiday of anarchy and bloodshed." Read- 
ers at the South, who have been accustomed to 
rely for contemporary history on Southern 
newspapers, or on those of the North in which 
information is given in a form adapted to 
the Southern market, may question if he were 
in his right mind when they find him testify- 
ing that : " among all the scenes of violence I 
witnessed, the offending parties were invariably 
on the pro-slavery side." Those who have 
seen nothing inconsistent with the official 
assurances of our late president, in the rapid 
humiliation of his three successively appointed 
governors, will hardly believe that the sympa- 
thies of an impartial, dispassionate, but justice- 
loving Englishman, could have been so immedi- 
ately engaged, on his arrival in the territory, for 
the Free-state party, as is implied by this narra- 
tive, unless his mind had been previously 
prejudiced against their opponents. 

He had been in intercourse, almost from the 
moment of his landing in America, chiefly with 
Southern minds. He came to Kansas fresh 
charged from Southern social influence. And 
yet, before he had met a single avowed free-soiler 



AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. Vll 

in the territory, be evidently had a most pain- 
ful impression of the injustice, tyranny, and 
persecution to which the majority of the actual 
settlers were subjected, and was well convinced 
that the pro-slavery party, and the influence of 
the South, acting through the federal govern- 
ment, was wholly to blame for this. 

" But, surely," some indignant " democrat" 
will ask, "he would not have us suppose 
that the truth about Kansas has been mo- 
nopolized all along by one party ; that the 
black republican newspapers have been all 
right, and the rest all wrong?" This may 
have been the case without any advantage 
in veracity of character to those wlio told the 
truth. It may have happened that nothing 
could have served their purpose better than the 
truth. Certainly, if that purpose was to be 
served by proving a desperate determination 
on the part of the administration to establish 
slavery in Kansas, if necessary, at any cost 
of justice and humanity, and of our reputation 
with the world as a civilized people, nothing 
could have answered it better than what Mr. 
Gladstone, carefully studying the facts upon 



Vlll 

the ground, was led to consider the truth. He 
attributes the most honorable conduct, in all 
respects, as good citizens, to the Free-state 
party in the territory, while it would be diffi- 
cult to describe a people more unfit to exercise 
the rightful privileges of citizenship than those 
whom he represents to be engaged, under the 
patronage of the federal authorities, in perse- 
cuting that party. 

Such a contrast between the character of the 
emigrants from the Slave States and of those 
from the Free — both being, not many genera- 
tions back, of the same origin and blood — would, 
indeed, be incredible, if there were not anterior 
reason to expect in the former a special prone- 
ness to violence, and a distrust, or habitual 
forgetfulness of law and civilized customs under 
exciting circumstances. 

Such a dangerous quality — gravely danger- 
ous, wherever this policy of so-called squatter 
sovereignty, involving, as it does, squatter war- 
fare, shall be tried ; and ten-fold grave to us 
of the North, since the recent decision of the 
Supreme Court, — such a dangerous quality is 
inbred and with every generation growing more 



AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. IX 

established in the character of the citizens of 
the South. It is so from the inexorable force 
of circumstances — thus : 

The title to property in slaves is derived 
at no remote period, from certain vindictive 
and lawless barbarians, who, having over- 
powered an enemy, considered his life as 
forfeited, and if they spared it, did so from 
no regard to the abstract right or sacredness 
of life, or any motive of humanity, but simply 
for the purpose of enjoying the profits of his 
labor. His labor and abject submission to all 
tiieir demands upon him was the price of his 
life, and with this understanding he was trans- 
ferred to America. At first the only persons 
so held were " Black-a-moors," and all Black- 
a-moors in the country were so held and consid- 
ered, and only by terror of death, legalized and 
insured by legislation and military force, contin- 
ued to be held in the requisite habit of subordin^ 
ation for profitable labor, by their purchasers and 
inheritors. Hence, exceptional Laws, exceptional 
customs, and hence, irresistibly, a defection from 
the usual sentiment of the sacredness of human 
life, as far as the negro was concerned. But as 



X AMEKICAX KDITOR's INTRODTJCTION. 

the negro is, after all, really a human being, 
whatever affects him, inevitably affects all human 
beings associated with him. Thus arises a pecu- 
liar influence which must produce and reproduce 
peculiar qualities among people nurtured in a 
slaveholding community. 

Hence, however our Southern fellow-citizens 
may continue to talk, and sentimentalize, and 
clothe themselves under ordinary circumstances 
in accordance with the customs, literature, laws 
and religious maxims of the rest of the civilized 
world, it is an inevitable effect of their peculiar 
institution to diminish in them that constitu- 
tional and instinctive regard for the sanctity of 
human life, the growth of which distinguishes 
every other really advancing people just in 
proportion to their progress in the scale of 
Christian civilization. Mr. Gladstone is not the 
first traveler whose studies among them have 
taught us this ; nor is it necessary to assume 
the truth of his testimony to prove that there 
is this essential difference between the people 
of the Free and the Slave states. In what 
community, uninfluenced by slavery, could 
such a record be made, of recklessness unre- 



AMERICAN editor's IXTRODUCTION. xi 

strained in regard to the life of its citizens, as 
the following, which is taken from the Lotas- 
ville Journal (June, 1854), and was suggested by 
the *• Mat Ward case," in which case, again, 
the alleged murderer was presently allow^ed to 
go free. 

** There have been scores of notorious cases 
of murder and acquittal in this city. There 
was the case of Kunz who killed SchafFer. 
Kunz, hearing that Schaffer had spoken lightly 
of a member of his family, went to his coffee- 
house and cursed him. Schaffer picked up a 
small stick and went around the counter as if 
to strike Kunz, whereupon the latter thrust a 
deadly weapon into his breast and killed him. 
He luas trial and discharged without imnislimcnt. 
There was the case of Delph who killed his 
uncle, Reuben Liter. Delph armed himself 
deliberately, and went to the upper market- 
house to meet Liter. He met him, sought a 
quarrel with him, and shot him dead on the 
spot. The quarrel was about a prostitute. 
Delyh was tried and acquitted hij a jury. There 
was the case of Croxton who killed Hawthorn. 
Ha\vthorn was in a coffee-house, sitting in a 



Xll AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

chair, drunk and asleep. Croxton struck bim on 
the head in that condition with a brick-bat, 
and killed him. He teas acquitted by a jury. 
There was the case of Peters who killed Baker. 
In Natchez, a long time before. Baker, in a fight, 
had wounded Peters, and made him a cripple. 
Peters being thus disabled. Baker supported 
him. The latter, after about a year, became 
very poor, and discontinued his bounty. There- 
upon, Peters pursued him to this city, rode in 
the night in a hack to his house, sent the hack- 
man to inform him that a gentleman and friend 
wished to see him on business, and when Baker 
came out and stood at the window of the hack, 
shot him dead instantly. Peters was acquitted by 
the jury and lived here for some years afterwards 
— long enough indeed to murder or try to murder 
a prostitute, upon whose bounty he subsisted. 
There was the case of the Pendegrasts, who killed 
Buchanan, a schoolmaster. The elder Pende- 
grast, wdth two of his sons and a negro, went 
to Buchanan's school-house with loaded guns 
and killed him, without giving him a chance 
for his life. The jury gave a verdict of acquittal. 
There was the case of Shelby who killed Horine 



AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

in Lexington. The two dined at the same 
public table, and, upon Horine's going into the 
street, Shelby demanded of him why he had 
looked at him in such a manner at the table. 
Horine answered that he was not aware of 
having looked at him in any unusual manner. 
Shelby said — 'You did, and if you ever do it 
again, I will blow your brains out. I don't 
know who you are.' Ilorine responded — 'I 
know you, and suppose a man may look at you, 
if your name is Shelby.' At that, Shelby 
struck him with his fist, and without any 
return of the blow, and without any display 
of a weapon by Horine, for he was unarmed, 
Shelby shot him dead. Shelby was indicted, 
but the jiirtj found no verdict against him. There 
was the case of Ilarr}^ Daniel, of jMount Ster- 
ling, who killed Clifton Thompson. Daniel 
and Thompson were lawyers, and brothers-in- 
law. Thompson made some imputation upon 
Daniel in open court. Daniel drew a pistol and 
shot him dead in the presence of judge and jury. 
Thompson had a pistol in his pocket but did not 
draw it. Daniel was acquitted hj a jury ^ 

Similar cases might be cited by the volume 



XIV 

in which public sentiment, finding its expression 
in the action of a jury, is proved to be constantly 
triumphant over all laws and ecclesiastical form- 
ulas in justifying homicide when it results from 
the quick and vehement anger of an undisciplin- 
ed intellect. This is the natural consequence 
of the lurking danger everywhere present at the 
South, by which its citizens are compelled to 
hold themselves always in readiness to chastise, 
to strike down, to sla}^, upon what they shall 
individually judge to be sufficient provocation 
or exhibition of insubordination. 

Southerners themselves may, perhaps, affirm 
that they are unconscious of this sense of 
insecurity, and this habit of preparation. But 
every habit breeds unconsciousness of its exist- 
ence in the mind of the man whom it controls, 
and this is more true of habits which involve 
our safety than of any others. The weary 
sailor aloft, on the lookout, may fall asleep ; 
not the less, in the lurch of the ship, will his 
hands clench the swaying cordage, but only the 
more firmly that they act in the method of 
instinct. A hard-hunted fugitive may nod in 
his saddle, but his knees will not unloose their 



XV 

hold upon his horse. Men who live in powder- 
mills are said to lose all conscious feeling of 
habitual insecurity ; but visitors perceive that 
they have acquired softness of manner and of 
voice. 

If a laborer on a plantation should contradict 
his master, it may often appear to be no more 
than a reasonable precaution for his master to 
kill him on the spot ; for, when a slave has 
acquired such boldness, it may be evident tliat 
not merely is his value as property seriously 
diminished, but the attempt to make further 
use of him at all, as property, involves in danger 
the whole white community. " If I let this man 
live, and permit him the necessary degree of 
freedom, to be further useful to me, he will 
infect, with his audacity, all my negro property, 
which will be correspondingly more difficult to 
control, and correspondingly reduced in value. 
If he treats me with so little respect now, what 
have I to anticipate when he has found other 
equally independent spirits among the slaves ? 
They will not alone make themselves free, but 
will avenge upon me, and my wife, and my 
daughters, and upon all our community, tlic 



Xvi AMERICAN EDlTOIl's INTRODUCTION. 

injustice which they will think has been done 
them, and their w^omen, and children." Thus 
would he reason, and shudder to think what 
might follow if he yielded to an impulse of 
mercy. 

To suppose, however, that the master will 
pause while he thus weighs the danger exactly, 
and then deliberately act as, upon reflection, he 
considers the necessities of the case demand, is 
absurd. The mere circumstance of his doing 
so would nourish a hopeful spirit in the slave, 
and stimulate him to consider how he could 
best avoid all punishment. 

But how is it in a similar case at the North ? 
I have seen it. "I am sorry," says the farmer ; 
*'I am sorry you have such a bad temper, 
John. I can't afford to have you live with 
me, if you have not more respect for yourself 
and for me, than to play the blackguard. I 
will pay you what I owe you, and then w^e w^ill 
part — part friends, if you please, for I bear no 
malice." And John goes, ashamed of himself, 
and with a sensible ^resolution to acquire a 
better self-government. The man who would 
knock John down, under these circumstances, 



AMERICAN EDITOR S IXTRODUCTIOX. XVU 

especially if John were the weaker man, or 
taken at disadvantage, from behind, or with a 
weapon, would live without the respect, the 
confidence, or the affection of his neighbors. 
He would be called a vindictive, irritable, mis- 
erable old fool. 

Mark the difference at the South. The same 
man would be called, and, perhaps, rightly, a 
brave, generous, high-toned, and chivalric gen- 
tleman. And, perhaps rightly, I say, for the 
impulses which would lead him, in the instant, 
and without reflection, to act decisively, that is, 
perhaps, to kill, and, at all events, to ver}' 
cruelly hurt his fellow-being, and that without 
the smallest regard to fairness, it is not impos- 
sible mii2rht have been based on a c^eiierous sense 
of his duty to the public, and a superiority 
to merely selfish considerations. Thus slavery 
educates gentlemen in habits which, at the 
North, belong only to bullies and ruflians. 

But, " planters sleep unguarded, and with 
their bedroom doors 0[)en." »So, as it was 
boasted, did the Emperor at Biarritz, last sum- 
mer, and with greater bravery, because the 
assassin of Napoleon would be more sure, in 



XVIU AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

dispatching him, that there would be no one 
left with a vital interest to secure punish- 
ment for such a deed ; and because, if he failed, 
Napoleon dare never employ suclT exemplary 
punisliment for his enemies as would the plant- 
ers for theirs. The emperors of the South are 
the whole free society of the South, and it is a 
society of mutual insurance. Against a slave 
who has the disposition to become an assassin, 
you find his emperor has a body-guard, which, 
for general effectiveness, is to the Cent garde as 
your right hand is to your right hand's glove. 

It is but a few months since, in Georgia, or 
Alabama, a man treated another precisely as 
Mr. Brooks treated Mr. Sumner — coming up be- 
hind, with the fury of a madman, and felling him 
v/ith a bludgeon ; killing him by the first blow, 
however, and then discharging vengeance by 
repeated strokes upon his senseless body.* The 

* " There are tender souls," says oSIr. Elliott, in the " New 
England History," '' who feel that after death the good alone 
live, and should only be spoken of, and this, in a degree, 
is true ; " but " it is safest, it is most manly, to see men fairly, 
as they are, whoever they are, alive or dead." The late Mr. 
Brooks' character should be honestly considered, now that 
personal eumity toward him is impossible. That he was 



XIX 

man thus pitifully abused had been the master 
of the other, a remarkably confiding and merci- 
ful master, it was said — too much so ; " it never 
does to be too slack with niggers." By such 
indiscretion he brought his death upon him. 
But did his assassin escape ? He was roasted, at 
a slow fire, on the spot of the murder, in 

courteous, accomplished, warm-hearted, and hot-blooded, 
dear as a friend, and fearful as an enemy, may be believed by 
all ; but, in the South, his name is yet never mentioned 
without the term gallant or courageous, spirited or noble, is 
also attached to it, and we are obliged to ask, why insist on 
this? The truth is, we include a habit of mind in these 
terras which slavery has rendered, in a great degree, obsolete 
in the South. The man who has been accustomed, from 
childhood, to see men beaten when they have no chance to 
defend themselves ; to hear men accused, reproved, and vitu- 
perated, who dare not open their lips in self-defense, or reply ; 
the man who is accustomed to see other men whip women 
without interference, remonstrance, or any expression of 
indignation, must have a certain quality, which is an essen- 
tial part of personal honor with us, greatly blunted, if not 
entirely destroyed. The same quality, which we detest in 
the assassination of an enemy, is essentially constant in all 
slavery. It is found in effecting one's will with another 
man by taking mifair advantage of him. Accustomed to 
this in every hour of their lives. Southerners do not feel 
magnanimity and the '* fuir-play" impulse to bo a necessary 
part of the quality of " spirit,'' courage, and nobleness. By 
spirit they apparently mean only passionate vindictiveness 
of character, and by gallantry mere intrepidity. 



XX 

the presence of many thousand slaves, driven 
to the ground from all the adjoining counties, 
and when, at length, his life went out, the fire 
was intensified until his body was in ashes, 
which were scattered to the winds and tram- 
pled under foot. Then "magistrates and cler- 
gymen" addressed appropriate w^arnings to the 
assembled subjects. It was no indiscretion to 
leave doors open again, that night. 

Will any traveler say that he has seen no 
signs of discontent, or insecurity, or apprehen- 
sion, or precaution ; that the South has appeared 
quieter and less excited, even on the subject 
of slavery, than the North ; that the negroes 
seem happy and contented, and the citizens 
more tranquilly engaged in the pursuit of 
their business and pleasure ? Has that traveler 
been in Naples ? Precisely the same remarks 
apply to the appearances of things there at this 
moment. The massacre of Hayti opened in 
a ball-room. Mr. Cobden judged there was not 
the smallest reason in the French king's sur- 
rounding himself with soldiers the day before 
the hidden virus of insubordination broke out 
and cast him forth from his kingdom. The 



AMERICAN editor's INTRODUCTION. XXi 

moment of greatest apparent security to tyrants 
is always the moment of their greatest peril. 
It is true, however, that the tranquillity of the 
South is the tranquillity of Hungary and of 
Poland ; the tranquillity of hopelessness on the 
part of the subject race. But, in the most 
favored regions, this broken spirit of despair 
is as carefully preserved by the citizens, and 
with as confident and unhesitating an applica- 
tion of force, when necessary to teach humility, 
as it is by the army of the Czar, or the omni- 
present police of the Kaiser. In Richmond, 
and Charleston, and New Orleans, the citizens 
are as careless and gay as in Boston or London, 
and their servants a thousand times as child- 
like and cordial, to all appearance, in their 
relations with them, as our servants are with 
us. But go to the bottom of this security and 
dependence, and you come to police machinery, 
such as you never find in towns under free gov- 
ernment : citadels, sentries, passports, grape- 
shotted cannon, and daily public whippings of 
the sul)jects for accidental infractions of police 
ceremonies. I happened myself to see more 
direct expression of tyranny in a single day and 



XXU AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

night at Charleston, than at Naples in a week ; 
and I found that more than half the mhabitants 
of this town were subject to arrest, imprison- 
ment, and barbarous punishment, if found in 
the streets without a passport after the evening 
" gun-fire." Similar precautions and similar 
customs may be discovered in every large town 
in the South. 

Nor is it so much better, as is generally 
imagined, in the rural districts. Ordinarily 
there is no show of government any more 
than at the North : the slaves go about with as 
much apparent freedom as convicts in a dock- 
yard. There is, however, nearly everywhere, 
always prepared to act, if not always in service, 
an armed force, with a military organization, 
which is invested with more arbitrary and cruel 
power than any police in Europe. Yet the 
security of the whites is in a much less degree 
contingent on the action of the patrols than upon 
the constant habitual and instinctive surveillance 
and authority of all white people over all black. 
I have seen a gentleman, with no commission or 
special authority, oblige negroes to show their 
passports, simply because he did not recognize 



AMERICAN EDITORS IXTRODUCTIOX. XXlll 

them as belonging to any of his neighbors. I 
have seen a girl, twelve years old, in a dis- 
trict where, in ten miles, the slave population 
was fifty to one of the free, stop an old man on 
the public road, demand to know where he w^as 
going, and by what authority, order him to 
face about and return to his plantation ; and 
enforce her command with turbulent anger, 
when he hesitated, by threatening that she 
would have him well whipped if he did not 
instantly obey. The man quailed like a spaniel, 
and she instantly resumed the manner of a 
lovely child with me, no more apprehending 
that she had acted unbecomingly than that her 
character had been influenced by the slave's 
submission to her caprice of supremacy ; no 
more conscious that she had increased the secu- 
rity of her life by strengthening the habit 
of the slave to the master race, than is the 
sleeping seaman that he tightens his clutch of 
the rigging as the ship meets each new bil- 
low. 

The whole South is, in fact, a people 
divided against itself, of w^iich one faction has 
conquered, and has to maintain its supremacy. 



XXiv AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

The '• state of siege" is permanent. Any 
symptoms of rebellion on one side, or of treach- 
ery on the other, cannot safely be left to the 
slow process of civil law; every white man is 
expected to deal summarily with them, and in 
such a manner as to pervade with terror, cow- 
ardice, and hopelessness all the possibly disaf- 
fected ; and in many districts, where the conta- 
gion of a bold or hot brain would be most 
dangerous, the life of the whole white popula- 
tion is that of a " vigilance committee," every 
man and woman grim-faced for a possible fero- 
cious duty. 

There is no part of the South in which the 
people are more free from the direct action of 
slavery upon the character, or where they have 
less to apprehend from rebellion, than Eastern 
Tennessee. Yet, after the burning of a negro 
near Knoxville, a few years ago, the deed was 
justified as necessary for the maintenance of or- 
der among the slaves, by the editor of a newspa- 
per (the Register), which, owing to its peculiarly 
conservative character, I have heard stigma- 
tized as " an abolition print." " It was," he ob- 
served, " a means of absolute, necessary self- 



AMERICAN EDITOR S IXTRODUCTIOX. XXV 

defense, which could not be secured by an 
ordinary resort to the laws. Two executions 
on the gallows have occurred in this county 
within a year or two past, and the example 
has been unavailing. Four executions by hang- 
ing have taken place, heretofore in Jefterson, 
of slaves guilty of similar offenses, and it has 
produced no radical terror or example for the 
others designing the same crimes, and hence 
any example less horrible and terrifying would 
have availed nothing here." 

The other local paper (the Whig), upon the 
same occasion, used the following language: 

*' We have to say, in defense of the act, that 
it was not perpetrated by an excited multitude, 
but by one thousand citizens — good citizens at 
that — who were cool, calm, and deliberate." 

And the editor, who is not ashamed to call 
himself '' a minister of Christ," presently adds, 
after explaining the enormity of the offense 
with which the victim was charged — " We 
unhesitatingly affirm that the punishment was 
unequal to the crime. Had we been there we 
should have taken a part, and even suggested 
the pinching of pieces out of him with red-hot 



XXVI AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTIOX. 

pincers — the cutting off of a limb at a time, 
and then burning them all in a heap. The 
possibility of his escaping from jail forbids the 
idea of awaiting the tardy movements of the 
law." 

Hov/ much more horrible than the deed are 
these apologies for it. They make it manifest 
that it was not accidental in its character, but 
a phenomenon of general and fundamental sig- 
nificance. They explain the paralytic effect 
upon the popular conscience of the great calam- 
ity of the South. They indicate that it is a 
necessity of these people to return in their 
habits of thought to the dark ages of mankind. 
For who, from the outside, can fail to see that the 
real reason why men, in the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, and in the centre of the United 
States, are publicly burned at the stake, is one 
much less heathenish, less disgraceful to the 
citizens than that given by the more zealous 
and extemporaneous of their journalistic expo- 
nents — the desire to torture the sinner propor- 
tionately to the measure of his sin. Doubtless, 
this reverend gentleman expresses the upper- 
moat feeling of the ruling mind of his commu- 



AMERICAN editor's IXTRODUCTIOX. XXVU 

city. But would a similar provocation have 
developed a similar and equally tumultuous, 
avenging spirit in any other nominally Christian 
or civilized people ? Certainly not. All over 
Europe, in every free-state — California, for 
significant reasons, temporarily excepted — in 
similar cases, justice deliberately takes its 
course ; the accused is systematically assisted 
in defending or excusing himself. If the law 
demands his life, the infliction of unnecessary 
suffering, and the education of the people in 
violence and feelings of revenge, is studiously 
avoided. Go back to the foundation of the 
custom which thus neutralizes Christianity, 
among the people of the South, which carries 
them backward blindly against the tide of 
civilization, and what do we find it to be ? The 
editor who still retains moral health enough to 
be suspected, as men more enlightened than 
their neighbors usually are, of heterodoxy, 
answers for us. To follow the usual customs 
of civilization elsewhere would not be safe. 
To indulge in feelings of humanity would not 
be safe. To be faithful to the precepts of 
Christ would not be safe. To act in a spirit of 



XXVlll AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

cruel, inconsiderate, illegal, violent, and piti- 
less vengeance, must be permitted, must be 
countenanced, must be defended by the most 
conservative, as a " means of absolute, neces- 
sary self-defense." To educate the people 
practically otherwise would be suicidal. Hence 
no free press, no free pulpit, nor free politics, 
can be permitted in the South, nor in Kansas, 
while the South reigns. Hence every white 
stripling in the South may carry a dirk-knife in 
his pocket, and play with a revolver before he 
has learned to swim. " Self-preservation is the 
first law of nature." 

I happened to pass through Eastern Tennes- 
see shortly after this tragedy, and conversed 
with a man who was engaged in it — a mild, 
common-sense native of the country. He told 
me that there was no evidence against the negro 
but his own confession. I suggested that he 
might have been crazy. "What if he was?" 
he asked, with a sudden asperity. 

What if he was? To be sure; what if he 
was ? In fact, he was not burned because he 
deserved it ; nor, if we consider, because he 
was believed by his rulers to have committed 



XXIX 



the offenses charged upon him. It was not a 
question of evidence, of morality, but of expe- 
diency — simply, of self-preservation. His life 
depended not upon a conviction of his guilt, in 
the minds of his judges, but upon the opinion 
which the subject people of the county were 
likely to have about it, the same necessity 
requiring this jury of his peers to be degraded, 
cunning, and suspicious. To make them sure 
that their rulers are a strong and hard-hearted 
race, quick, sure, and terrible in their vengeance, 
was the object. It was a question no more 
of justice than of mercy, to the victim used 
in accomplishing the object. 

Is it incredible that men, nurtured in com- 
munities whose most conservative and respect- 
able classes, whose very professional teachers 
feel themselves justified in taking part in such 
barbarity, upon such grounds, should have been 
found, by Mr. Gladstone, guilty of purely bar- 
barous conduct towards a people whose patient 
and self-controlling habits were so new to them 
that they could only ascribe them to a slave- 
like cowardice? Evidently, to the invaders 
of Kansas, it must have seemed a merciful 



XXX AMERICAN EDITOR's INTRODUCTION. 

treatment of those they had been taught to 
consider their enemies, when they fell into 
their hands, merely to hang, or shoot, and scalp 
them, without torture. 

" No people," it has been said, " are ever 
found to be better than their laws, though 
many have been known to be worse." If, in 
the following advertisement, which was recent- 
ly published in North Carolina, the proper- 
names and technical phrases were suitably 
changed, and it were presented to us by a 
traveler as coming from the Sandwich Islands, 
would it not strike us that it had been rather 
premature to class the natives of those islands 
amonc: the Christian nations of the world? 

o 

"' State of North Carolina, Jones County. — Whereas, 
complaint upon oath liatli this day been made to us, Adonijali 
McDaniel and John N. Hyraan, two of the Justices of the 
Peace of said county, by Franklin B. Harrison, of said 
county, planter, that a certain male slave belonging' to him, 
named Sam, hath absented himself from his master's services, 
and is lurking about said county, committing acts of felony 
and other misdeeds. These are, therefore, in the name of 
State, to command the said slave forthwith to surrender 
himself and return home to his master ; and we do hereby 
require the Sheriff of said County of Jones to make diligent 
search and pursuit after the said slave, and him having 
found, to apprehend and secure, so that he may be conveyed to 



AMERICAN EDITOR S IXTRODUCTION. XXXI 

his said master, or otherwise discharged as the law directs ; 
and the said Sheriff is hereby authorized and empowered to 
raise and take with him such power of his county as he shall 
think fit for apprehending the said slave ; and we do hereby, 
by virtue of the Act of Assembly, in such case provided, in- 
tunate and declare that if the said slave, named Sam, doth 
not surrender himself and return home immediately after the 
publication of these presents, that anij person may kill and 
destroy the said slave, by suck means as he or they may think 
Jit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offense 
for so doing, and without incurring any penalty and forfeiture 
thereby. 

" Given under our hands and seals the 29th day of Sep- 
tember, A. D., 185G. 

'■■ A. McDANIEL, J. P. : seal. : 



*• J. N. HYMAN. J. P.'' : SEAL 



'•$100 REWARD. 

" I v;ill give Fifty Dollars for the apprehension and 

delivery of the said boy to me, or lodge him in any jail in the 

State, so that I get him, or ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS 

FOR HIS HEAD. 

-F. C. HARRISON." 

May not the most conservative of us soon be 
obliged to consider less what we can do and 
suffer to retain the fellowship, than what w^e 
can do to guard against the sinister influences 
upon our own politics and society, of contiguous 
States, under the laws of which there is still 
the liability of such an exposition of constitu- 



XXXII AMERICAN EDITOR S IXTRODUCTION. 

tioiial barbarism? Whac is to be expected of 
such seed but such bitter fruit as that of Kan- 
sas, under the heat of Squatter Sovereignty ? 

The supreme judicial authority of the 
same State has declared that it would be pre- 
posterous, while the intention of holding the 
slaves in their present subjection was main- 
tained, to consider it a crime for a v/hite 
man to shoot a woman attempting to escape 
from the ordinary chastisement of indocility. 
It was decided (in the case of the State vs. 
Mann), by Justice Ruffin, *' essential to the 
value of slaves, as property, to the security of 
the master, and to the public tranquillity," that 
such recklessness with human life should be 
unrestrained by the law.* 

Let the reader who thinks there must be 
'* two sides" to this story of Kansas, and that 
Mr. Gladstone has chosen to give his country- 

* " Sacli service as is required of a slave, can ouly be expected 
of one •U'ho has no will of his own ; who surrenders his will in 
implicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the 
consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body ; 
there is nothing else which can operate to produce that effect. 
The power of the master must be absolute to render the obe- 
dience of the slave perfect."— 2. Devereaux's uV. C. Rep., 
263. 



AMERICAN EDITOR S IXTKODUCTIOX. XXXlll 

men but one of them, remember that the neces- 
sity which has made the South thus exception- 
al among civilized States, in its law, must have 
made the people of the South much more ex- 
ceptional among civilized mankind in their 
habits and character. Mr. Gladstone demon- 
strates but one consequence — that one which, 
being defended and apologized for by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, has most injured the 
reputation of democratic institutions through- 
out the world. The world should recos^nize the 
fact that the disgraceful condition of Kansas, the 
atrocious system, which the federal government 
of the United States has been forced to counte- 
nance in Kansas, is the legitimate fruit of des- 
potism, not of free government. 

There are, however, many other characteris- 
tics of the people of the South which have had 
their origin in this necessity, which we of the 
North — since the absence of slavery is likely 
hereafter to depend on a local ordinance, since 
slavery is olhcially intimated to be national, and 
all opposition to slavery declared to be "sec- 
tional" — cannot afford to overlook. Would to 
God we had " nothing to do with it." But, as 



XXXiv AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

a Southern-born man said to me, lately, "It is 
a white man's question." Shall we hereafter 
exercise our rights as citizens of the United 
States, which are simply our natural rights as 
men, only by favor of Sharp's rifles and in en- 
trenched villages ? 

It is, for instance, the foundation of that pecu- 
liar political cooperativeness and efficiency which 
we see in the people of the South. Nothing is 
safe if the slaves rise. Towards any party or 
measures, therefore, which, however indirectly, 
militate in the least against the everlasting 
subordination of the slave race, they act, as 
they do towards the slaves themselves, with the 
self-preserving instinct of a community always 
prepared for the attacks of a savage enemy. 
Hence, the intensity and completeness with 
which they give themselves up to any political 
purpose in which an increase of wealth, and, 
consequently, of stability in power, is involved 
for the slaveholding body. They engage in 
it as in war, and hold ordinary rules of morality 
and social comity to be suspended till they have 
gained their ends. 

Their orators are wont to boast that they 



AMERICAX EDITOR .S INTRODUCTION. XXXV 

belong to a military people. What are termed 
the military qualities of the South are, again, 
the natural effects of this inherited watchful- 
ness and readiness to meet, instantly and de- 
cisively, with cruelty and bloodshed, the first 
symptoms of insubordinate disposition on the 
part of their slaves. These military qualities 
are, in fact, not such as are most valued for 
modern armies — individual staunchness, pa- 
tience, and endurance of character, contributing 
to combined concentrativeness, precision, and 
mobility— but rather those of the feudal ages, 
or of savage u'arriors, the chief being mere 
belligerent excitability, readiness of resort to 
arms, an idolatrous estimate of the virtue of 
physical courage, and an insane propensity of 
that kind which leads Indian braves to amuse 
or disgust their visitors, as the case may be, by 
*' scalp-dances" and monotonous recitative of 
their glorious achievements, past and pro- 
spective. A government of force is ordinarily a 
government of threats and gasconading osten- 
tation. The subject must continually know 
that the master is confident in his strength. 
We are well instructed by Humboldt, that the 



XXXVl AMERICAN EDITOll S iX TRODUCTIOX. 

only worthy purpose of the student of history 
is to learn the influence which different circum- 
stances have had on the development of char- 
acter in mankind. Doubtless, slavery has not 
wholly failed of good effects upon the character 
of our fellow-citizens of the South. I do not 
now inquire what those effects are, because 
such an inquiry is not pertinent to the subject 
of this book. In the conduct of those who 
represent the influence of slavery in Kansas, 
only the worst qualities w^iich it is possible for 
men to acquire have hitherto been displayed. 
Even the measurable success with which they 
have, to this moment, maintained their conquest, 
is due to no good judgment, energ}', or bravery 
of their own, but is evidently entirely dependent 
on what, to such observers as Mr. Gladstone, 
must be the most incredible and inexplicable 
circumstance in the whole sad business — the 
encouragement they receive in their villainy 
from the democraticparty of the Free-states, and 
the constant countenance, supplies, reinforce- 
ments, and patronage of the federal administra- 
tion. Withdraw this ; let the oppressed citizens 
generally feel that it would be right, and proper, 



AMERICAN editor's INTRODUCTION. XXXVU 

and lawful to deal with their present rulers as 
they have been dealt with by them, and the sav- 
ages would disappear from the land as the more 
manly Indians have before them, and then the 
present scandal of Kansas would be lost in the 
natural peace, order, and prosperity of a society, 
no member of which need have aught to fear but 
from his own folly, nor aught to hope but from 
his own industry, as surely as the fire-black- 
ness of its winter prairies is submerged in the 
green flood of its spring. 

Is it unpatriotic to thus show the incompati- 
bility of slavery with good citizenship ? 

The people of the South arc " my people." 
I am attached to them equally as to those of 
Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. My blood and 
my fortune are equally at their service. I 
desire their prosperity as I do that of no other 
people in the world. I look upon slavery as 
an entailed misfortune which, with the best 
disposition, it might require centuries to wholly 
dispose of. I would have extreme charity for 
the political expedients to which it tempts 
a resort. 

But it seems to me now, that such inexcusa- 



XXXVlll AMERICAN EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

ble scoundrelism in our common matters, as 
has been shown in Kansas, should make us 
consider if charity has not been carried too far ; 
if the forbearing, and apologetic, and patron- 
izing disposition towards everything in the 
South, or of the South, or for the South, is not 
as much calculated to bring us into difhculty 
as the reckless and denunciatory spirit attrib- 
uted to the abolitionists. Have not thousands 
of our Northern people so habituated them- 
selves to defend the South that they have 
become as blind to the essential evils and dan- 
gers of despotism as if they were themselves 
directly subject to its influence ? 

In the South itself, there has been for many 
years a school of fanatics, who maintain that 
slavery is essential to a high form of civiliza- 
tion ; who, in their selfish anxiety to maintain 
it, have trained themselves to think that its 
influence is wholly ennobling and refining, 
christianizing and civilizing. These views are 
so flattering to the predominant- bad propen- 
sities developed by slavery that they are 
propagated with a zeal and a success like that 
of the immediate followers of Mahomet. The 



AMERICAN editor's INTRODUCTION. XXxix 

characteristic vices of the middle ages are 
unearthed and enshrined under the name of 
chivalry, and the youth of our country is 
taught to reverence a reckless, blundering, 
and blood-thirsty buccaneer as a " second 
Washington," and a silly, romantic, swaggering 
poltroon, who can talk wickedly of women and 
wear a graceful feather, as " the Marion of 
Kansas." 

Against this gospel no one dare contend with 
a spirit and boldness at all comparable to that 
of its apostles. Books, periodicals, and news- 
papers, are interdicted, if they maintain the faith 
w^iich was universal among its friends in the 
Soutli when our Union was formed. However 
calm and respectful their manner, they are denied 
the service of the United States mails ; those who 
receive them are denounced as abolition trai- 
tors ; gentlemen who acknowledge themselves 
to privately hold similar opinions, and who are 
on terms of friendship with their authors, feel 
obliged to "discountenance" them. "If I 
should express my real opinions," said one, 
himself a large slaveholder, " it is not unlikely 
T should be mobbed and my life placed in 



Xl AMERICAN EDITOR's INTRODUCTION. 

jeopardy by men who never have owned and 
never will own a single negro." 

Nay, have we not recently seen that, for a 
mere act of customary politeness to a political 
opponent, and of respect to a high official of 
our national government, Mr. Aiken, of South 
Carolina, the wealthiest citizen and the largest 
slave-owner of that state, has been denounced 
and insulted, as guilty of a " gross wrong" to his 
constituents ? There is no *' democratic paper" 
in all the South, believes the editor of the 
South Carolina Thnes, that has not condemned 
the act ; no paper which has approved of 
it. In all the South, not one editor still 
lives to sympathize with the instincts of a 
gentleman of the old school. So complete 
is the success of the new gospel of slavery in 
its own country.* 



* The argument with which the South Carolina Times, in 
the article referred to, disposes of the claim of courtesy, 
strikingly sustains the opinions I have expressed, that it is to 
an habitual precaution against insubordination of the 
slaves that we are chiefly to attribute the peculiar customs 
and manners of the South. Speaker Banks is an opponent 
of the extension of slavery — not an abolitionist in the politic- 
al sense ; " but," says the Times, " we regard him a? beyond 



AMERICAN editor's INTRODUCTION. xll 

At the North, we have not only ** public 
documents" sent us by the ton, but many self- 
styled democratic newspapers, which follow, 
as near as can be thought discreet for propa- 
gandists, in the same course — denying the evils 
of slavery, apologizing for them, or, with as- 
tounding impudence, in the case of these Kansas 
barbarisms, charging them upon the persecuted 
and long-suffering victims, whom, also, they 
holdup to scorn, as " traitors" and '- abolition- 
ists." The most successful journal in the 
service of the administration here in New 
York, is not satisfied thus negatively to serve 
the purposes of the slavery fanatics, but takes 
the aggressive against freedom, daily arguing 
" the universal failure of free society," earn- 
estly combating " the wide-spread delusion 
that Southern institutions are an evil, and 



the pale of a refined courtesy — excluded by his own acts. 
If incurable fanaticism be a merit, Speaker Banks has it. 
If inexpiable treason be a virtue, Speaker Banks can claim 
it. To prove this we need only repeat what we have said 
before. Mr. Speaker Banks avows sentiments that lead 
directly, and lead inevitably, to insurrection, rapine, and 
murder ! He boldly proclaims himself an enemy to the 
South — to the institutions of the South." 



Xlii AMERICAN EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

their extension dangerous," and diligently ad- 
vocating the claims to universal adoption of a 
system, living under the influence of which 
Jefferson declared the citizen " must be a 
prodigy who retained his morals and manners 
undepraved ;'■ which Patrick Henry testified to 
be "at variance with the purity of our 
religion ;" which Mason held " to produce the 
most pernicious effects on manners," and calcu- 
lated to draw " the judgment of heaven upon a 
country ;" which Franklin termed " an atrocious 
debasement of our nature," and " a plan for the 
abolition" of which Washington declared to be 
"among his first wishes." 

When the Supreme Court finds slavery to have 
been considered a national institution by these 
statesmen in the construction of our constitu- 
tion ; when this opinion, at variance with 
every impression we have received from our 
fathers, is welcomed with cheers and congratu- 
lations in the North, as by the State Demo- 
cratic Convention of Connecticut ; when nearly 
all the newspapers of the South, and one 
quarter of those at the North, express nothing 
but satisfaction with the criminality of the 



xliii 

late administration in Kansas ; nothing but 
charity or admiration for the savages nurtured by- 
slavery to fight its battles ; nothing but sneers 
and maledictions for the grand results of free 
government manifested in the patient, orderly, 
and industrious character of their victims ; 
when with the ruling, though minor party, of 
our citizens, freedom and the "Rights of man" 
are subjects only of ridicule — slavery only of 
apology or laudation ; when foreigners find 
border- warfare the most interesting subject of 
observation on our continent ; when the sub- 
jects of every crowned head in Europe are 
pointed to Kansas for a caution against dreams 
of self-government ; when our army is used as a 
reserve force for bands of robbers, while they 
murder the sons, and ravish the daughters, and 
devastate the property of our dearest friends 
and neighbors, and all in the service of slavery, 
is it not reasonable to believe that there is 
greater danger of our forgetting the evils which 
the people of the South suffer from slavery 
than of our overlooking the advantages which 
they claim to enjoy from it ? 



PREFACE. 



The following pages comprise the chief sub- 
stance of a series of letters on the condition of 
Kansas which appeared during the past winter 
in the columns of The Times newspaper. By 
the kind permission of the Editor, the material 
then used has been introduced into the present 
volume, in which a more complete and detailed 
portraiture is attempted of those scenes of 
peace and war which came under the author's 
observation whilst travelling in the western 
territories of America in the early summer of 
1856. 

To enable the reader better to comprehend 
the political strife of which Kansas has been 
the arena, the author has introduced into this 
volume a few concluding chapters, which com- 
prise in brief outline the principal events 



Xlvi PREFACE. 

which have marked the histoiy of this contest. 
The author has not attempted argument upon 
the political questions involved. He has care- 
full v avoided the subject of Slavery, except 
where he speaks incidentally of the economics 
of free and slave labour. He has not made 
himself the advocate of the measures adopted 
by the Free-state party to form a State Gov- 
ernment, although the Committee of Investi- 
gation appointed by Congress repon in favour 
of the Constitution thus adopted, as one which 
embodies the will of a majority of the people. 
His simple desire has been to present facts, 
and he cheerfully leaves it to others to draw 
such inferences as they may deem legitimate. 

As it has been the author's object to restrict 
his statements to that which he has seen or 
been able personally to verify whilst in the ter- 
ritory, it necessarily follows that the events 
which have occured since his visit are more 
cursorily noticed. He has only introduced 
these later events in order to give completeness 
to the narrative ; but, as his information has 
been gathered solely from those of whose 
trustworthiness he has had full proof in con- 



PREFACE. Xlvii 

nection with the events with which he is per- 
sonally familiar, the author feels confidence in 
the accuracy of the statements which the few 
closing pages contain. 

To the two interesting volumes which have 
recently appeared in America upon the subject 
of Kansas, by Mr. TVilliam Phillips and Mrs. 
Robinson, the author is especially indebted for 
facts contained in the concluding chapters of 
this Book. Had they reached his hands before 
his own volume was in the press, they might 
have been further sen'iceable to him. As it is, 
they have aided him in writing of that which 
has occurred since his visit, whilst they give 
valuable confirmation to the statements con- 
tained in the narrative of his own investiga- 
tions. 

Lastly, the author hopes it will not gire 
pain to any one of his many valued friends in 
America, that he should have addressed him- 
self to a subject which they cannot but grieve 
over as he does. He can assure such, that he 
has had no object in view but to hasten the 
application of a remedy to that which is a sore 
evil. Had similar events taken place in his 



Xlviii PREFACE. 

own country, he would have felt warranted in 
speaking of them with far greater severity. If 
any feel yet aggrieved, he can only repeat the 
maxim : — 

*' Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis 
amicus Veritas." 

But of those whose friendship is a prize 
worth treasuring — and many such the author 
rejoices to number in America — he feels assur- 
ed it will never be said that their friendship 
was conditional on silence as to the truth. 
The author commits his Book, therefore, to 
his true friends and to all others, known or un- 
known, in the belief that the truth, spoken 
without animosity and with a sincere desire to 
render beneficial service, will, whilst it con- 
tributes towards this end, be misapprehended 
or misjudged by none. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction by the American Editor. . . iii 

Preface. ....... xlv 

CHAPTER I. 

Excitement in relation to Kansas.— Difference of Opinion.— The 
President's Special Message.— Washington.— Contest as to a 
Seat in Congress. — Rival Legislatures. — Appointment of a Com- 
mittee of Investigation.— Southern Meetings.- Volunteei-s in 
Arms. — j»Ii8souri. — Powder and Shot, — Advertisements. — A 
Crisis at Hand. — Visit to Kansas 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Outburst of Violence. — Burning of Lawi'ence. — Contents of the 
following Chapters. — Political Parties. — Dramatis Persona;. — 
Federal Appointees. — Border-ruffian Ring-leaders. — Leaders of 
the Free-state Cause 10 

CHAPTER III. 

Situation of Lawrence. — Eventful History. — The Winter Campaign 
of 1855. — Earthwork Fortifications. — Organized Defence. — De- 
termination to " wipe out Lawrence." — The Southern Wax'-ery. 
— Peaceful Policy of Free-state Inhabitants. — Reinforcement of 
the Border-ruffian Army. — Sheriff Jones's reported Assassination. 
—Sheriff Jones's Tours of Arrest. — Hotel and NcAvspaper offices 
to bo abated as Nuisances. — May 21st. — Position of the besieg- 
ing Army. — The War-flag raised. — Arrests of Citizens. — Sur- 
render of Arms demanded by Jones. — Entry of the Forces. — 
General Atchison's Address to his men. — Demolition of Printing- 
offices. — Cannon. — Burning of Free-state Hotel. — Flight of the 
Women and Children. — General Pillage. — Firing of Governor 
Robinson's House.— Southern Hearts filled with Joy and Pride. 
— "Law and Order" triumphant 21 



1 C.-^XTENTS. 

CHAPTER IT. 

Tke divsfier&e Sack. — Digb^aiir^g o: :h? Forces. — KnSirs «e- 
OBtBS tke Lav.— XkbsL— Dttftfale BecddetL— A Xi^( &£ Kan- 
■as <3tr. — Appfaranee of tbe Mob. — Desp^rrare Characters. — 
&atesfM Co^BBe.— A Fearfal tkreaL— Xi^^p on tbe W^ 
mtrnxL — Feflow-traT€lI«s. — '• Border-rofiaaziSw' — A Popolar Ora- 
tor. — r ie asaa t Bep oBe. — Mocbb^. — ^^ Extras." — ^An locidest — A 
xe^eelalile MexebuL— Sis OpimoKs.— Tbe - Did Hoes^ does 
BOt eare aboat BreakfKt.— A gesUe HIn :.— A bccter Set.— Ciril- 
xdea.— Tbe petheteJ ag Mo^^aat. — ^A Western yiizi. — Qoiet 
GoBirersaikB.- Fiieafir Adriee.— A Tanke« b a Xcisanc*, and 
waBkbepitd(«wm.— Acaa^dO^aaoa. . . . 39 

L H A P ^ Z I^ '• . 



u— HflnidTfareafa^— Ofioeof tke Hotd. 
—A Bacder-TaJEaa Ai^Bvy.— A Free^oOer SHeaeed.— How to 
a^fle fke Abo&Muab.— So«2h«n '^ Ksaa." — Fort Leares- 
vQcffa.— GcKbEBgHoases.— A S^&t of diiaaksB WickedaesB 
aad awrheffte d Ooizage. — Goreraor Sobiaaan's Arrest. — Fierce 
T hc alA . — FteazB of a Beseae. — CoBaaittee of Investigation. — 
Beware of tte HespL- Aireat of F ie& ^iito Mea.— Stale oi 
Fiarties.— Beralaba <^ Tedaag. — O f ganaa tion d GncEnlla Par- 
M 



CHAPTER VI. 

VTkj are s— _ 0--i,;;c3 p^rtolnei 3 — Tczsl TiH-zn c: Justice. — 
The Jefficers of th* Taritory. — A Test re:^e'l— An unpioaa 
Oadx. — ASrsaatioa of the Xebraska-KaiLSia Ac: ar i the Fa^i- 
tire Save Law. — Jcdgew Jarv, and La^. — AH ozo Wav. — Sam- 
ple of the Ksieas Ssatutes.— Ball ici LLiin.— Freedosi cf 
^eedi fiicbiddez. — Parrgjimeal: of Deaii. — Abase of tae Term 
" L«^.^— yo HcD- cf Jistice for Free = tit 5 Meti- . . t7 



HA? 



— ':i9 Phnicai Fore* 



CONTENTS. I 

A-i;^"':-: — Hrw :o ■^-'. -- Mi;-.-::-. — Ifje;^ ^'jja. — N:: F— 
— : r — ■' .\' r " — A :':-j.::^ ?r-E-^^'JT. — Cvncl^.cri c: :b 



CHAPTER Till. 

R- V — 1 .^ - r-- ■ Les^^litzre — Mrz ir.i TLizji La 

K.aasa.5.— I :f ir::ler^ — In--r_*^ Ex:e^: cf 

Country—: -iLv-rs —The K»-*.-5 tnc ML»^z^ 

-Ur^ -I-ilinT'b-f-Fcr^l^rj cf 

The ' ::t^ — Ei : - - - 

Ac:.- - : :-^^?- y - . :r 

ia vi-r - — " c:w^-i, _ . — rirr-r.? 

Bzi 7 ." l-^Msc— i: . ^ -IHj^ 



CHAPTER II. 

?:r.i_Lg Cc::u-sj:. — Freedom uid SlaTery. — E,iv. i ?: 
Kanaa?. — Xonhem F:r;" grant Aid S-xdede? . — SpL-i: of i 
— Tbe P : - — • Ls^ a^d Or: - " -7 

Son.— L^e.— Tto V.'e§-- 

Cha:. Rcclprocltj— :: 

Tte 1 New W&rll— }1 

E'-vmii-.-r ... ir... — -icliieT-:— -' •■ ' v 
Cor::exp: cf the Yarkee; — 
Effect of Po::-Jc= on the Wc: . r . „ 

CHAPTER X . 

Varictlea cf Populiuon :i: Ka:i5i«. — Tvpe= of 2il 
MLiaOcri Steamer. — ^Tce Border-riSini. — L 
Free-soliers. — Ne-s- Ifexicia Spaniardi — 7" 
German Je-srs, — "Datchaeti."' — Pr>?:r- 
Stakes — Goremnieat OSeiala— Ur:? - 
African Race. — Freedom of Spe-; - 
tradon. — Jsd^e OTrifger. — Hli . — 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The day after the Sack. — Disbanding of the Forces.— Ruffians exe- 
cuting the Lavr. — Thirst.— Double Rectified.— A Night at Kan- 
sas City. — Appearance of the Mob. — Desperate Characters. — 
Grotesque Costume. — A Fearful threat. — Night-trip on the Mis- 
souri. — Fellow-travellers. — " Border-ruffians." — A Popular Ora- 
tor. — Pleasant Repose. — Moi-ning. — " Extras." — An Incident.— A 
respectable Merchant. — His Opinions. — The " Old Hoss" does 
not care about Breakfast. — A gentle Hint. — A better Set.— Civil- 
ities. — The persevering Merchant. — A Western Man. — Quiet 
Conversation. — Friendly Advice. — A Yankee is a Nuisance, and 
must be put down. — A candid Opinion. . . . 39 

CHAPTER V. 

Leavenworth City. — Going on Shore. — A State Prisoner. — Gov- 
ernor Robinson in Custody. — Scanty Accommodation.— Governor 
Robinson's Examination. — Horrid Threats. — Office of the Hotel. 
— A Border-ruffian Armoury. — A Free-soiler Silenced. — How to 
settle the Abolitionists. — Southern " Fixins." — Fort Leaven- 
worth. — Gambling Houses. — A Night of shamless Wickedness 
and unchecked Outrage. — Governor Robinson's Arrest. — Fierce 
Threats. — Fears of a Rescue. — Committee of Investigation. — 
Beware of the Hemp. — Arrest of Free-state Men. — State of 
Parties. — Revulsion of Feeling. — Organization of Guerrilla Par- 
ties. — Frequent Collisions 54 

CHAPTER VI. 

Why are such Outrages permitted? — Total Failure of Justice. — 
The Jeffreys of the Tei'ritory. — A Test required. — An impious 
Oath. — Affirmation of the Nebi-aska-Kansas Act and the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law. — Judge, Jury, and Law. — All ono Way. — Sam- 
ple of the Kansas Statutes. — Ball and Chain. — Freedom of 
Speech forbidden. — Punishment of Death. — Abuse of the Term 
" Law." — No Hopo of Justice for Free state Men. . . 67 

CHAPTER VII. 

Southern Law-makers. — Perversion of Authority. — A fraudulent 
Legislature in Power.— The " Blue Lodge."— The Electors 
overawed.— General Stringfellmv's Speecli.— The Physical Fore* 



CONTENTS. 11 

Argiirnont.— How to got a Majority. — Illopjal Votes. — Not Fonr 
per Cent. Legal. — Terrorism. — Polling. — The CongresB Report. 
— Right of Might, — A forcible Persuader.— Conclusions of the 
Committee of Investigation. — A Poll-tax. — Pro-slavery Votes 
purchasable by Law. — Anti-slavery Votes prouunced void 
by Law. — Public Documents cited. — Laws worso than Dra- 
conian ... T7 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Recapitulation. — The " bogus" Legislature.— Men and Things in 
Kansas. — Different Classes of Settlers. — Immense E.^tent of 
Country. — Physical Aspect. — Rivers. — The Kansas and Missoux-i. 
—Undulating Prairie.— Caravans. — Indian Tribes. — Fertility of 
the Soil. — Salubrity of the Climate. — Commercial Advantages. — 
The " mad Missouri." — Excellent Market. — " NebraskaKausaa 
Act." — A Race between North and South. — Pro-slavery Party 
in the Ascendant. — Struggle between the two Partic.",. — Tarring 
and Feathering. — Sale of a Free Man. — Model Legislators. — Dis- 
cordant Elements. — Development 90 

CHAPTER IX. 

Striking Contrast. — Freedom and Slavery. — Rapid Progress of 
Kansas. — Northern Emigrant Aid Societies. — Spirit of Eutei-prise. 
— The " Regulators." — "Law and Order" Men. — The Widow's 
Son. — Barbarous Outrage. — Tho Western Frontiersman. — His 
Character. — Generous Reciprocity. — Mode of lutercouroe. — 
The Pioneer of the New AVorld. — His Appointments — The 
Romance of Peril. — Achievements of the Western Pathfinder. — 
Contempt of the Yankees. — The Source of Life and Vigour. — 
Effect of Politics on the Western Character. . . . 102 

CHAPTER X. 

Varieties of Population in Kansas. — Types of Mankind on board a 
Missouri Steamer. — The Border-ruffians. — Loud Men. — Silent 
Free-soilers. — New Mexican Spaniards. — Nuns. — Mormons. — 
German Jews. — " Dutchmen." — Professed Gamblers. — High 
Stakes. — Government Officials. — United States Officers. — Tho 
African Race. — Freedom of Speech forbidden. — A curious Illus- 
tration. — Judge O'Trigger. — His Appearance — Conversation— 



lii CONTENTS. 

His Legal Wisdom.— Ljiich LaTv.— The Judicial Functionary's 
Plan. . 114 

CHAPTER XI. 

Two great Divisions. — Pro-slavery Men and Free-soilers. — Sub- 
divisions. — Slaves. — Small Xumber of Slave-owners in Kansas. 
— Their "\Vork.s. — '' Border-ruffians." — King of the Fire-eaters. 
— Their Numbers. — Volunteer Companies. — An American 
" Groggery." — A Border-ruffian's Boast.— A fair "Border-ruffian." 
— ^The Free-state Party. — General Lane.— Governor Kobinson. — 
His Services. — Enormities of Naples and Austria reproduced in 
America. — Relative Numbers in Kansas of Southerns and North- 
ems. — Migration. — Permanent Settlers. — Floating Population. — 
Western Cities. — Contrast between Free and Slave Town?. 123 

CHAPTER XII. 

Subject of the following Chapters. — Leavenworth City. — Far 
Western Life- — Its accidental Features. — Fort Leavenworth. — 
Appearance of the City. — Buildings. — Plan of the City. — Re- 
mains of the primeval Forest. — Situation of the Houses. — Laying 
out a City. — Most desirable Locations. — Increased Value of 
Property. — Rapid Rise of a City. — Substantial Buildings.— 
Wooden Shanties. . . ; 1'33 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Kansas Interiors. — The Log-hut. — Discomforts. — Wind and Mud. 
— Strange Medley. — Various Modes of Construction. — Diflferent 
Stages of Log-hut building. — The Wooden House and Shanty. 
— How it is built. — Tent-life. — Interior Economy. — " Temperance 
House." — The Company. — Occupations. — Unreasonable De- 
mands for Accommodation. — Alligators turned out. — Travel 
teaches Contentment. — Disallowed at Night, but enforced by 
Day. — Conveniences of the Toilet. — Meals. — Pride of the Host, 
— Rapid Eating. — Population of Leavenworth. — Commerce of 
the Plains. — Value of Stock. — Caravan Trains. . . 146 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Traffic with the Indians. — How it is carried on. — Business and 
Pleasure. — Good Per-centage. — Buoy Appearance of Leaven- 



CONTENTS. liii 

worth. — Necessaries of civilized Life.— Steamboats. — Railroads. 
—The Electric Telegraph.— Squatter-life.— Land without a Title. 
— The " Claim."— Division of New Lands.— A " Bee." — "Log- 
rolling.'' — Squatter Sovereignty. — " Tomahawk Rights." — "En- 
tering," or *' Pre-empting." — Abuses of the System. — " Jump- 
ing."—" Foundations."— xi " Caution."— Right of Suffrage. 100 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Geography of Kansas. — Junction of the Kansas and Missouri 
Rivers. — Kansas City. — The Santa Fe Road. — Settlements up the 
Kansas River. — Lawrence. — Lecompton. — Topeka. — Kaw Half- 
breeds. — Fort RUey. — Mounds. — California Road. — The Oregon 
Trail. — Crossing the Plains. — Character of the Country. — The 
Great American Desert. — The Rocky Mountains.— Banks of the 
Missouri. — Leavenworth City and Fort. — Western Routes. — The 
Upper Missouri. — Osawatomie. — Climate and Soil of Kansas. — 
Production. — Wages 173 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Red Races of Kansas. — Variety of Condition. — Deep Debase- 
ment.— Prejudicial Intercourse with White Men. — Fire-water. — 
Civilization.— Efforts for the Elevation of the Indian Tribes. — 
Good Fruit. — The Indigenous Tribes of Kansas. — Kaws, Osages, 
Ottoos, Pawnees. — A Total Abstinence Tribe- — The Immigrant 
Tribes. — Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots. — A Wyandot Family. 
— Kickapoos, Sacs and Foxes, lowas. — Pottawat amies, Sacs and 
'Foxes, Ottawas. — Results. 189 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Visit to a Company of Sioux Indians. — Their Ci'imes and Punish- 
ment. — A timid Companion. — Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! — Friendship 
accepted. — Friendship mistrusted. — Exhibition of Displeasure. 
— The Calumet of Peace. — Indian Hospitality. — Te-o-kun-ko's 
Appearance, Dress, and Feats. — Torn Belly in a Blanket. — The 
Squaw and Pappoose. — Furnishings of the Tent. — Teaching the 
young Idea how to Shoot. — Solemn Mela^icholy. — Parting Friend- 
ship. — Mother and Child. — Description of Kansas Life concluded. 
—The Reign of Terror 204 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Controversy.— Shall Kansas bo Slave or Frco? — Slavery a 



ilV CONTENTS. 

Barrier to a Country'e Advancement.— Influence of Slavery on 
Population, Education, Cultivation of the Soil, Price of Land. — 
A fair Competition vroiild make Kansas Free. — Pecuniary and 
Political Interests of the South.— A fair Competition from the 
first denied 216 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Commencement of the Troubles in Kansas. — Its Organization 
ae a Territory. — Slavery prohibited previously by the Missouri 
Compromise. — Senator Douglas. — Conception of a bold Idea. — 
The Compact broken. — Passing of the Nebraska-Kansas Act. — 
Squatter Sovereignty. — Unskilled Legislators. — The People to 
regulate their Domestic Institutions in their own Way. — Mr, 
Scward'8 Speech. '-230 

CHAPTER XX. 

Missouri takes an Interest in Kansas. — Claims staked off. — Sover- 
eignty taken up in the new Territory. — Blue Lodges. — Slavery, 
"at whatever Cost of Blood and Treasure." — Hostile Resolu- 
tions. — Indian Lands ceded. — Northern Immigration. — The Chal- 
lenge accepted. — Appointment of Governor and Judiciary. — 
Governor Reeder. — Lawrence founded. — Leavenworth and other 
Settlements. — Election of Delegate to Congress. — The Contest. 
— Missourian Invasion. — General Striugfellow's Programme of 
Operations. — Return of General Whitfield. . . , 239 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Election for the Territorial Legislature, March 30, 1S55. — Spirit of 
the Press. — Preparations for an Invasion in Missoui-i. — Numbers 
of the Invading Forces. — The Hemp. — Incidents of Bowie-knife 
Voting. — Ninety out of ever>- Hundred Votes Illegal. — Incidents 
at Bloomington. — Sheriff Jones' Exploits. — Windows Smashed. 
—House Lifted. — Ballot-box Stolen.— Hurrah for Missouri !— Re- 
turning Home. — Piratical Symbols. — Victory. — Protests against 
Elections. — Unpopularity of Governor Reeder. — Summary Pun- 
ishment of a Newspaper Press. — The Fraudulent Legislature Or- 
ganized. — Exclusion of Free-state Membei-s. — Two Months of 
Legislation. — Appointment of Officers. — Reciprocity. — Public 
Companiec. 253 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Removal of Governor Reeder. — Appointment of Governor Shau- 



con. — Character of the two Governors contrasted. — Shannon's 
Declaration of Political Views.— Organization of the Free-state 
Party.— Independent Action to form a State Government.— Pub- 
lic Sentiment among the Southern Party.— Outrages.— A Cler- 
gyman floated on the Missouri. — Murder. — Slackness of the Law. 
— Singular Use of Judicial Power 271 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Murder of Dow.— The Guilty acquitted, the Innocent arrested.— The 
Midnight Rescue.— Rally to Arms.— The Wakarusa War — Posi- 
tion of the Encampments. — First Siege of Lawrence. — Its De- 
fence. —Amusing Incidents. — Mournful Events.— The Treaty 
of Lawrence.— Peace Festivities.— Disbanding of the Ruffian 
Forces.— Discontent.— Barbarous Treatment of Prisoners.— Mur- 
der of Mr. Brown. — Fiendish Cruelty ^i83 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Change in Popular Feeling after the Destruction of Larfrence.— 
Retaliation.— Massacre at Osawatomie.— Personal Experience.— 
Battles of Black Jack and Franklin.— Sack of Osawatomic.— 
Road-side Horrors.— Hanging.— Repulsion of Northern Immi- 
grants.— A Barbarous Wager. — Murder and Scalping. — The 
Atrocity Completed.— August.— Murder of Major Hoyt.— Burn- 
ing of Pro-slaveiy Forts.— Colonel Titus Seized and Liberated. 
—Treaty of Peace.— Militia Called Out.— Proclamation of Re- 
bellion.—" The Army of Law and Order in Kansas Territory."— 
Second Fight at Osawatomie.— General Lane's Free-state Army. 
—Expulsion of the Free-state Inhabitants of Leavenworth.— The 
President's Messages. 295 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Governor Gean\— His Pacific Proclamation.— Its Interpretation.— 
Release of State Prisoners on Bail.— Capture of Ninety-eight 
Free state Men.— Their Condition in Prison.— Revolting Inhu- 
manity towards the Prisoners. — Sufferings of the Settlers. — Sick- 
ness, Cold, Hunger, and Orphanage. — The Present and the 
Futiu-e of Kansas.— Action of Congress 310 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Supplement by the American Editor. .... 318 



KANSAS. 



CHAPTER 1. 

Excitement ia relatioa to Kansas. — Difference of Opinion. — 
The President's Special Message. — Washington. — Contest as 
to a Scat in Congress. — Rival Legislatures. — Appointment 
of a Committee of Investigation. — Southern Meetings. — 
Volunteers in arms. — Missouri. — Powder and Shot. — Adver- 
tisements. — A Crisis at Hand. — Visit to Kansas. 

When in New York, during the latter part 
of the winter of 1855-6, I heard daily discus- 
sions on the condition of affairs in the far 
western territory of Kansas. Some of the 
newspapers had their special correspondence at 
what was termed '' the seat of war," and all 
were eager to supply the latest intelligence 
from the scene of contest. At Washington, 
whilst the house of Representatives was busy 
choosing a Speaker, — a process which lasted 
through nine weeks, and required one hundred 
and thirty-three ballots, — the President, with- 
out waiting for the organization of the house, 
made Kansas the subject of a special message. 
Yet, while all parties agreed in recognizing the 



KANSAS. 



existence of disorder in Kansas, there were 
strange difterences in the light in which that 
disorder was regarded. 

Many of the public journals spoke with 
indignant censure of bloodshed and forcible in- 
vasion from neighbouring states, as well as of 
violent interference with the people of Kansas 
in the exercise of their rights of suffrage. The 
President spoke in mild terms of " disturbing 
circumstances," " irregularities," and " inau- 
spicious events," adding, that "whatever irreg- 
ularities might have occurred in the elections, 
it seemed too late now to raise that question." 

The papers spoke of a legislative body claim- 
ing authority over the residents of Kansas, 
which they had not elected, but which had 
been forciby thrust upon them with pistol and 
bludgeon by a lawless horde from the State of 
Missouri. The President said, that "for all 
present purposes the legislative body, thus 
constituted and elected, was the legitimate 
assembly of the territory." 

The people of Kansas were represented by a 
large portion of the press as groaning under a 
most oppressive legislation, and as craving de- 



THE PRESIDENT S SPECIAL MESSAGE. 3 

liverance from a fraudulent legislature, and 
from tyrannical laws enacted by that legisla- 
ture. The President made it the conclusion of 
his message, that he felt it his imperative duty 
to exert the whole power of the federal execu- 
tive for the vindication of these laws, for the 
suppression of all resistance to them, and for 
the support thereby of public order in the terri- 
tory. He begged all good citizens to help him 
thus to restore peace, and asked for an appro- 
priation to defray the expense of enforcing the 
laws, and thus maintaining public order in 
Kansas. 

The difference was apparent. A large por- 
tion of the people denied the legality of the 
legislative power in the territory, and bitterly 
complained of the injustice with which that 
power was exercised, and the oppressions under 
which they were consequently placed. The 
President said it was too late now to raise the 
question of legality, — they must submit ; that 
if they did submit, peace would ensue ; but, if 
otherwise, the federal force and the army of the 
United States would be employed against them 
to compel their submission. 



KANSAS. 



At Washington I gained further insight into 
the question. 

I saw the tall figure of General Whitfield 
moving about the House of Representatives, 
and heard lengthened arguments whether he 
or the ex-govenor Reeder was the rightful dele- 
gate of Kansas. These discussions ended in 
permission being given to Mr. Whitfield, the 
pro-slavery delegate, to occupy a seat in the 
house without voting, the question of right be- 
tween him and Mr. Reeder being reserved. 

Every day I heard Kansas and its contest 
argued upon in the Senate Chamber and in the 
House of Representatives, in the bustling hall 
of the National Hotel, and in private political 
circles. I heard that which I conceived to be 
the extreme on the one side and on the other, 
and was not long in discovering that, while the 
President and the advocates of Southern views 
maintained the authority of the illegally con- 
stituted Territorial Legislature of Kansas, and 
of the judiciary and other officers appointed by 
it, the opposite party, with a large portion of 
the people of Kansas themselves, asserted the 
claims of an incipient State Legislature, which 



COMMITTEE OP INQUIRY. 5 

they had elected in the prospect of its being 
admitted as a state. 

A double legislature, a double judiciary, a 
double set of civil appointments throughout 
each claiming sole prerogative, the State Leg- 
islature calling the Territorial a fraud, and the 
Territorial calling the State Legislature a sham ; 
such a political condition appeared strangely 
anomalous. 

On the one side of the question a very lono- 
report from the Committee of Territories was 
presented to the Senate by Mr. Douglas, and 
on the other side, a *' minority report," from 
the same committee by Mr. Collamer. At 
length, on the 19th of March, Congress gave a 
temporary check to the protracted discussion 
by accepting a motion which sprang from the 
Committee on Elections, to the effect that a 
committee should be appointed to investigate 
and collect evidence in regard to the troubles 
in Kansas generally, and particularly in regard 
to any fraudulent or violent proceedings that 
might have accompanied the elections in the 
teiTitory. No member from any one of the 
Southern states voted in flivour of the investi- 



G KANSAS. 

gation, but happily a majority was given by 
the Northern states, and the Committee on 
Inquiry was appointed. This resolution was 
passed whilst I was in Washington, and I made 
up my mind at the same time, if practicable, 
in the spring of the year, to carry out an 
investigation on my own account, and to satis- 
fy myself, if possible, as to where the truth 
lay, which seemed buried beneath so over- 
whelming a mass of contradictory assertions. 

Later, when in South Carolina and other 
Southern states, I witnessed extraordinary 
meetings, presided over by men of influence, 
at which addresses of almost incredible vio- 
lence were delivered on the necessity of *' forc- 
ing slavery into Kansas," of " spreading the 
beneficent influence of Southern institutions 
over the new territories," and of ^' driving 
back at the point of the bayonet the nigger- 
stealing scum poured down by Northern fana- 
ticism." 

These meetings generally terminated by an 
urgent appeal for men and money. The result 
of this public agitation was, that large compa- 



POWDER AND SHOT. 7 

nies were formed of young men who were 
enthusiastic for slavery, and subscriptions of 
large amount were made to send these, who 
were already at blood-heat with excitement, 
armed into the territory, and furnished with 
means of support during the continuance of 
the campaign. 

In the latter part of May I found myself in 
the State of Missouri. For two or three 
months I had read none but Southern journals, 
I had spoken with none but Southern men, I 
had heard none but Southern views, and, as a 
consequence, I was fully furnished with the 
South-side aspect of the controversy. 

The accounts from Kansas indicated a most 
threatening condition of affliirs. Party bitter- 
ness had apparently increased. Law existed 
only for party purposes, and deeds of violence 
were of almost daily occurrence. 

The St. Louis papers contained advertise- 
ments, by the half-column, of rifles, revolvers, 
gunpowder, and lead. One of these advertise- 
ments may serve as an example of the whole. 
I extract the following from the Daily Missouri 




O KANSAS. 

Rejmbliccm, published at St. Louis. Attention 
is arrested by tlie heading, " Kansas," in large 
type, and the representation of a revolver in 
the margin. 

KANSAS. 

JUST EECEIVED, by Adams Sf 
Co's. ExjyresSy a large and fine Assort- 
ment of Double and Singlk 

SHOT-GUNS, 

which will be sold cheap for Cash. 

We have also on hand an Assortment of our own Mana- 
facture of 

RIFLES, 

so well known for the past thirty years throughout tb& 
Western country. 

Emigrants to Kansas should not fail to call at 

, and examine our Stock before purchasing else- 
where. 



The Committee of Inquiry appointed by 
Congress I understood to be at the time in 
Kansas, carrying on their investigations. 
Through the kindness of friends, I had been 
furnished with letters to Colonel Sumner, who 



VISIT TO KANSAS. U 

was in command of the United States troops, 
and other persons of influence in the territory. 
Being ah'eady in the adjoining State, and 
events of great moment in the history of 
Kansas, if not the breaking out of civil war 
itself, being evidently at hand, I felt disinclined 
to forego my purposed visit. Five hundred 
more miles of river navigation would take me 
to the scene of conflict. I resolved to go and 
see for myself. 
1* 



10 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER II. 

Outburst of Yioleuce.— Burning of Lawrence.— Contents of 
the following Chapters.— Political Parties.— Dramatis Per- 
Bonae. — Federal Appointees. — Border-ruffian Ring-leaders. — 
Leaders of the Free-state Cause. 

Could I have made choice of a period in which 
to visit Kansas, which should be most rife with 
incident and best adapted for the successful 
prosecution of my inquiries, I could not have 
selected one more favourable than that of my 
actual visit. The aflairs in the territory had 
reached a crisis. At that moment unresisted 
oppression had reached its highest point, and 
the severest blow was struck which Kansas has 
yet received. Greater individual suffering may 
have been inflicted later, but May 21st, 1S56, 
was a day which turned the tide of popular 
feeling, and thus terminated one era in the his- 
tory of the Kansas struggle, and introduced 
another. 

On that eventful day the town of Lawrence, 



BURNING OF LAWRENCE. 11 

without offence or crime, was attacked by armed 
forces, some six or eight hundred strong ; its 
principal hotel, the largest private building in 
the territory, was battered down and then re- 
duced to ashes ; the printing-offices of the Free- 
state journals were set fire to, the editors having 
been previously captured and carried off as pris- 
oners ; the type and presses were destroyed and 
cast into the Kaw river; and the city itself was 
given over to a merciless sack. On the same 
day, and by the same agency, occurred the firing 
of Governor Robinson's house on Mount Oread, 
after it had been made throughout the day the 
head-quarters of the invading troops. Govern- 
or Robinson himself had been arrested a few 
days before while travelling eastward, and was 
a prisoner during the attack upon Lawrence, as 
well as for four months subsequent. His arrest 
was made without a legal warrant, and his te- 
dious confinement in the gaol at Lecompton 
was equally without sentence or trial. 

But the blow aimed at the Free-state cause 
in the destruction of Lawrence, and the seizure 
and imprisonment of some of its most active 
adherents, brought a severe recoil. A spirit of 



12 KANSAS. 

resistance was evoked, public feeling throughout 
the country was aroused, and it is not improba- 
ble that this great temporary triumph of the 
pro-slavery party in Kansas may prove itself in 
the end its most signal defeat. 

In the following chapter I purpose describing, 
as accurately as possible, from information gained 
on the spot, the events of the siege of Lawrence. 
It maybe right to add that, whatever testimony 
I gathered in Kansas was, for the most part, 
obtained from pro-slavery men. My account, 
therefore, is rather the result of the admissions of 
these than of the assertions made by Free-soil 
advocates. I have endeavoured to omit all 
statements which are not admitted by the 
concurrent testimony of both parties. 

In a succeeding chapter I will give some de- 
tail of events witnessed by myself, which will 
illustrate the earlier portion of Governor Kob- 
inson's captivity and the spirit of his captors, 
during a short period when it w^as my fortune 
to be his companion in travel. 

As an introduction to these narratives, how- 
ever, it may be of service to many readers to 
have presented in a single view the names of 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 13 

the principal personages who have borne their 
part, whether nobly or ignobly, in the earlier 
stages of Kansas history. A more particular 
delineation of some of the most noted of these 
characters may be attempted later, when oc- 
casion requires. But the following list will 
interpret for the reader the names most fre- 
quently occurring in the narrative, and will 
indicate the official capacity or political views 
possessed by the individuals themselves. 

Of political parties in Kansas, the two main 
divisions are, of course, the Free-state and the 
pro-slavery parties ; but the latter exhibits a 
further distinction, according as its adherents 
are moderate and constitutional in their main- 
tenance of Southern views, or endeavour to 
force their principles upon the territory by 
powder and shot. The latter policy is known 
as " border-ruffianism.'* 

Colonel E. V. Sumner. — Colonel of the 1st 
regiment of cavalry, and, until the latter part 
of 1856, commander of the United States troops 
in Kansas. Colonel Sumner won distinction in 
the Mexican war, and has had much experi- 



14 KANSAS. 

ence of military affairs in the Western territo- 
ries. 

Andrew H. Reeder. — The first Governor of 
Kansas appointed by the President. A man of 
erect form and determined aspect, hair slightly 
gray, more apt to listen than to commit himself 
by speech. He received his appointment as a 
friend of the Southern interest, but offended his 
party by failing to espouse the border-ruffian 
cause. He was removed from the governorship 
by the President in the summer of 1855, and 
was subsequently elected by the Free-state 
people- as delegate to Congress, in opposition to 
Whitfield. 

Daniel Woodson. — The Secretary of the ter- 
ritory during Eeeder's governorship, and after- 
wards acting Governor until the appointment 
of Shannon. He is a tall, somewhat handsome 
young man ; comes from Arkansas, and is true 
to the South, but did not join in all particulars 
the extreme party. 

Wilson Shannon. — The second Governor of 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 15 

Kansas appointed by the President. An extreme 
Southern man in politics, of the border-ruffian 
type. Under Shannon's governorship, all the 
worst deeds that have marked the history of 
Kansas have taken place. As the head of the 
executive in the territory during the border- 
ruffian rule. Governor Shannon's name v^ill 
need to be mentioned only too frequently. 

J. W. Whitfield. — The delegate returned 
chiefly by Missourian votes, to represent Kansas 
in Congress. " General " Whitfield, as he is 
commonly called, is a resident of Missouri, and 
was formerly an Indian agent. He is a tall 
man, of uninviting expression of countenance 
and somewhat sinister aspect. Latterly the 
General took the field, and became very active 
in the border-ruffian campaign. 

Samuel Dexter Lecompte. — The Chief 
Justice of Kansas territory, appointed by the 
President. A small, fair-complexioned, keen- 
eyed lawyer, Judge Lecompte has rendered 
himself infamous as the type of judicial border- 
ruffianism, even as Shannon represents the same 



16 KANSAS. 

principle in the executive. The town of Le- 
compton has been named in honour of the 
Judge, and has been designated by the territo- 
rial legislature as the capitol of the territory. 

J. B. Donaldson. — The Marshal of the ter- 
ritory, also appointed by federal authority. Like 
Shannon, a native of Ohio, and, like him, also 
determined to serve the power which placed 
him in office. He is a man somewhat advanced 
in life, but has made himself remarkable, even 
amongst his associates, for his unscrupulous sur- 
render of his powers as United States Marshal 
into the hands of the border-ruffian leaders. 

W. P. Fain.— Deputy U. S. Marshal. A 
Georgian, and a despicable follower of Donald- 
son in his measures of extermination. 

Samuel J. Jones. — Formerly Postmaster in 
the town of Westport, Missouri; afterwards 
made Sheriff of Douglas County in Kansas, 
and chief agent in^ the execution of the be- 
hests of the border-ruffian judiciary. A re- 
markably mean and contemptible man, but 



PRO-SLAVERY LEADERS. 17 

one who has had much power placed in his 
hands. 



David R. Atchison, of Platte County, Mis- 
souri, formerly Senator for the State, President 
of the Senate, and Vice-President of the United 
States ; known on the border as " General 
Atchison," or " Old Dave," Captain of the 
Platte County Rifles, and a prime leader among 
the border-ruffians. A thorough Missourian in 
his language and habits, as well as in his politi- 
cal views. To General Atchison and the four 
or five whose names follow, belongs the credit 
of having commenced and been the chief 
agents in sustaining the border-ruffian policy in 
Kansas. 

J. H. Stringfellow, living in the town of 
Atchison, K. T. A doctor ; editor of the 
Squatter Sovereign, a violent border-ruffian pa- 
per ; member of the House of Representa- 
tives in the Territorial Legislature, and chosen 
to the Speakership of the same. Called generally 
Dr. Stringfellow. His editorial articles breathe 
out threatenings and slaughter continuallv. 



IS KANSAS. 

Bexjamix Fkaxklix Strixgfellow. — A 
brother of the former, practismg as a lawyer, 
in partnership with Perer T. Abell, in Wes- 
ton, Missouri. Called by distinction " General" 
Stringfellow. A border-ruffian to the core. 
Eather over the middle age, fair in complexion, 
but furious in his crusade against freedom. 

TVillia:>i p. PcIchaedsox. — Another of the 
Missourian brotherhood, who has been engaged 
in the plot from the commencement. He was 
elected to the Tentorial Legislature as Member 
of Council, and, on the organization of the 
militia by the legislature, was made Major- 
General of the Kansas Teritorial Militia. 

Dr. G-eosge W. Batless, Col.Beowx, Col. 
YorxG, Col. Booxte, all residents of Missouri, 
and leaders in the cause of slavery extension. 

Key. Thomas Johxsox-. — Superintendent of 
the Shawnee Manual Labor School and ^Mission ; 
appointed by the United States Government to 
teach the Shawnee Indians farming, letters, and 
the principles of Christianity. It will be well 



LEADERS OF THE FREE-STATE CAUSE. 19 

for the Indians that they should not follow his 
practice. He is a warm adherent of border- 
ruffianism. As President of the Council, he has 
been elevated to the highest office in the Terri- 
torial Legislature, and some absurd attempts 
were once made to make him Governor. 

Colonel Buford, of Alabama, and Coloxel 
Titus, of Florida; two zealous Southern men, 
who came with other officers into Kansas about 
April, 1S56, at the head of large companies of 
volunteers from the Southern States, to aid the 
border-ruffian cause. 

Charles Roben-sox. — A native of Massachu- 
setts, by profession a physician, and who has 
had some experience of life in California. Al- 
though under fony years of age, his cool self- 
possession, caution, and soundness of judgment 
marked him out as the leader of the Free-state 
cause. When the Free-state party formed a 
military organization, Dr. Robinson became 
Major-General and Commander-in-Chief; and, 
on then* forming a civil power, he was elected 
Governor under their State constitution. 



20 KANSAS. 

Colonel James H. Lane. — A young man, 
full of impetuosity and fiery daring ; obtained 
his rank as Colonel in the Mexican war ; has 
also sat in Congress. He has devoted himself 
with great spirit to the Free-state cause in 
Kansas, was made Brigadier-General in the 
Free-state army, and was chosen as President 
of the Constitutional Convention which met at 
Topeka. 

Samuel C. Pomeroy. — Also a Free-state 
General, and one who has taken, from the 
first, an active interest in the settlement of 
Kansas. 

William Y. Roberts. — Made Lieutenant- 
Governor under the Free-state constitution. 
A man who likes, apparently, to see himself 
in office, but lacks the nerve for high occa- 
sions. 



SITUATION OF LAWRENCE. 21 



CHAPTER III. 

Situation of Lawrence. — Eventful History. — The "Winter Cam- 
paign of 1855. — Earthwork Fortifications. — Organized De- 
fence. — Determination to "wipe out Lawrence." — Ttie 
Soutliern War-cry. — Peaceful Policy of Free-state Inhabit- 
ants. — Reinforcement of the Border-ruffian Army. — Sheriff 
Jones's reported Assassination. — Sheriff Jones's Tours of 
Arrest. — Hotel and Newspaper offices to be abated as Nui- 
sances. — May 21st. — Position of the besieging Army. — The 
"War-flag raised. — Arrests of Citizens. — Surrender of Arms 
demanded by Jones. — Entry of the Forces. — General Atchi- 
son's Address to his men. — Demolition of Printing-offices. — 
Cannon. — Burning of Free-state Hotel. — Flight of the "Wo- 
men and Children. — General Pillage. — Firing of Governor 
Robinson's House. — Southern Hearts filled with Joy and 
Pride. — ** Law and Order" triumphant. 

Some forty miles up the Kaw or Kansas 
river, and some forty miles, therefore, from the 
Missouri state-line, stands the town of Law- 
rence. It is situated at a very beautiful spot 
on the right bank of the river. Behind the 
town, on the southwest, at the distance of 
nearly a mile, rises a hill of considerable eleva- 
tion, known as Mount Oread. Towards the 



22 KANSAS. 

east, undulating prairie-land stretches for many 
miles, intersected by the Wakarusa Creek. 
And at a spot where the prairie, at the foot 
of a somewhat high bluff, slopes towards the 
woody margin of the Kaw, stands the busy 
little town itself, now so famous in Kansas 
annals. 

The autumn of 1854 witnessed the erection 
of the first log-huts of Lawrence by a few fami- 
lies of New England settlers. During the year 
1855 its population increased rapidly, chiefly 
by the arrival of emigrants from the Northern 
States. Its log-hut existence gave way to a 
more advanced stage, in which buildings of 
brick and stone were introduced ; and the 
growing prosperity of the " Yankee town" early 
began to excite the jealousy of the abettors of 
slavery. Viewed as the stronghold of the Free- 
state party, it was made the point of attack 
during what was called " the Wakarusa war" 
in the winter of 1855. Before the termination 
of this its first siege, the necessity of some 
means of defence being manifest, the inhabitants 
of Lawrence proceeded to fortify their town by 
the erection of four or five circular earthworks, 



WINTER CAMPAIGN. 23 

thrown up about seven feet in height, and 
measuring a hundred feet in diameter. These 
were connected with long lines of earthwork 
entrenchments, rifle-pits, and other means of 
fortification. Whilst these engineering opera- 
tions were being carried on, the men might 
have been seen, day and night, working in the 
trenches, in haste to complete the defence of 
their Western Sebastopol. The inhabitants 
were also placed under arms, formed into com- 
panies, with their respective commanders, 
under the generalship of Robinson and Lane, 
had their daily drill, mounted guard day and 
night upon the forts, and sent out at night a 
horse-patrol to watch the outer posts, and give 
warning of approaching danger. 

The pacification which followed the Waka- 
rusa campaign in December, 1855, afforded only 
a temporary lull. Although war had ceased, 
the people did not cease to carry arms, and used 
them, when occasion offered, with fatal effect. 
The Missourians did not conceal that they were 
organizing another invasion, which should 
effectually " wipe out Lawrence," and win 
Kansas for slavery, " though they should wade 



24 KANSAS. 

to the knees in blood to obtain it." The 
Southern states were being appealed to far and 
wide, to aid by men and money in the extirpa- 
tion of every Northern settler. The spirit of 
the pro-slavery party may be gathered from 
their journals, from the columns of which ex- 
tracts like the following might be made in any 
number. After speaking of Free-state men as 
being '' willing to violate the constitution of 
their country, which explicitly recognizes 
slavery," the Kickaiioo Pioneer (Dec. 26) pro- 
ceeds : 

" Should such men receive any compassion 
from an orderly, union-loving people ? No ! 
It is this class of men that have congregated at 
Lawrence, and it is this class of men that Kan- 
sas must get rid of. And we know of no better 
method, than for every man who loves his 
country and the laws by which he is governed, 
to meet in Kansas and kill off this God-forsaken 
class of humanity as soon as they place their 
feet upon our soil." 

Again, in an extra number of the same jour- 
nal, published Jan. 18, 1856 : 

*' Forbearance has now ceased to be a virtue; 



POLICY OF FREE-STATE INHABITANTS. 25 

therefore we call upon every pro-slavery man 
in the land to rally to the rescue. Kansas must 
be immediately rescued from the tyrannical dogs. 
* * * * Pro-slavery men, law and order men, 
strike for your altars ! strike for your firesides ! 
strike for your rights ! sound the bugle of war 
over the length and breadth of the land, and 
leave not an abolitionist in the territory to re- 
late their treacherous and contaminating deeds. 
Strike your piercing rifle-balls and your glitter- 
ing steel to their black and poisonous hearts ! 
Let the war-cry never cease in Kansas again, 
until our territory is wrested of the last vestige 
of abolitionism." 

Surrounded by so much fire and fury, which 
was not confined to mere words, the non-resist- 
ance of the Free-state people was remarkable. 
Lawrence kept itself fortified, continued its 
drills, had its " Committee of Public Safety," 
and did not return the shots frequently fired 
against it by passers-by at night. In the mean 
time the Free-state delegates met at Topeka, 
organized the State Legislature, made applica- 
tion to the federal power for the admission of 
Kansas into the Union with a free constitution, 

and petitioned the President, although vainly, 
2 



26 KANSAS. 

for protection from wrong. Their steadfast 
adiierence to these peaceful measures, and their 
remarkable moderation in the midst of much 
that might have excited a spirit of resistance, 
was doubtless due chiefly to the peaceable policy 
ever counselled by their Commander-in-Chief 
and Governor, Charles Robinson, whose wise 
caution preserved the Free-state party from 
doing a single act which might serve their 
adversaries as a reasonable excuse for an appeal 
to arms. 

The month of May arrived, and the state of 
parties continued as before. The pro-slavery, 
or, as it was commonly termed, the border-ruf- 
fian army, had, however, gained strength by 
large reinforcements from the States. Colonel 
Buford was there with his determined bands 
from Alabama, Colonel Titus from Florida, 
Colonel Wilkes and others with companies from 
South Carolina and Georgia, all of whom had 
sworn to fight the battles of the South in Kan- 
sas. The President, too, through his Secretary- 
at-War, had placed the federal troops at the 
command of Governor Shannon, and the Chief 
Justice Lecompte had declared, in a notable 



ASSASSIXATIOX OF SHERIFF JONES. 27 

charge to a grand jury, that all who resisted 
the laws made by the fraudulently elected 
Legislature were to be found guilty of high 
treason. 

In the mean time the people of Lawrence, 
some fifteen hundred, probably, in number, 
silently awaited the coming blow. 

The chief aim of the party in power was to 
find an excuse for an attack upon Lawrence. 
The inhabitants of the town, and especially 
their *' Committee of Public Safety," were as 
resolute in not giving any such occasion. At 
length the report went through the country, 
that Samuel Jones, the Sheriff of Douglas 
County, who had been most active in making 
arrests of Free-state men, with a view to excite 
provocation, was shot — shot in the spine — 
basely assassinated by blood-thirsty abolition- 
ists. His murder must be avenged, they said, 
though at the sacrifice of every abolitionist in 
the territory. Yet Jones was not murdered. 
He had been slightly wounded by a ball, from 
whose pistol none could say; but how little 
the Free-state party was chargeable with the 
act may be judged from the indignation meet- 



28 KANSAS. 

ing held on account of it in Lawrence on the 
following day, the resolutions they passed con- 
demnatory of the act, the reward they offered 
for the apprehension of the guilty person, and 
the care they took of Jones himself, lodging 
him in their own Free-state Hotel, and attend- 
ing to his wants until he was able to go forth 
and persecute them anew, wdth a more deadly 
rage than ever. 

That Sheriff Jones had been assassinated, 
that Governor Reeder had resisted a deputy 
marshal in an attempt to arrest him, that the 
people of Lawrence were turning the Free- 
state Hotel into a fortress, with parapets and 
port-holes for the use of cannon and small 
arms, that there were mines beneath the streets 
of Lawrence, to be sprung in case of attack — 
these were the stories current in every one's 
mouth when I first approached the territory, 
and out of which abundant capital was made, 
in order to inflame the people against Law- 
rence. 

Meanwhile, Sheriff' Jones rode about the 
country with a "posse" of United States 
troops, arresting whomsoever he pleased ; the 



ARRESTS, INDICTMENTS, AND MURDERS. 29 

grand jury declared the Free-state Hotel and 
the offices of the Herald of Freedom and Kansas 
Free-State newspapers in Lawrence to be nui- 
sances, and as such to be removed ; Governor 
Robinson and several other men of influence in 
the Free-state cause were severally seized and 
held as prisoners ; Free-state men were daily 
molested in the highway, some robbed, and 
others killed ; and a constantly increasing army 
was encamping right and left of Lawrence, 
pressing daily more closely around it, and 
openly declaring that their intention was to 
*' wipe out the traitorous city, and not to leave 
an abolitionist alive in the territory." 

Tiie policy pursued by the inhabitants of 
Lawrence during these events was a very 
pacific one. They resolved, through their 
Committee of Public Safety, to offer no man- 
ner of resistance to the acts, however unjust, 
of those possessed of authority, and even ten- 
dered their services to the Marshal, to aid him 
in serving his processes on those whom he de- 
sired to arrest. They also made representations 
of the danger of their position to the federal 
and territorial authorities, but without effect. 



30 KANSAS. 

At length the day approached when Law- 
rence was to fall. On the night previous to 
May 21st, could any one have taken a survey 
of the country around, he would have seen the 
old encampment at Franklin, four miles to the 
southeast of Lawrence, which w^as occupied 
during the Wakarusa war, again bristling with 
the arms of Colonel Buford's companies, 
brought from the States. This formed the 
lower division of the invading army. On the 
west of Lawrence, at twelve miles distance, 
he would have seen another encampment in 
the neighbourhood of Lecompton, occupied by 
the forces under Colonel Titus and Colonel 
Wilkes. These were reinforced by General 
Atchison, with his Platte County Rifles and 
two pieces of artillery ; by Captain Dunn, 
heading the Kickapoo Rangers ; by the Doni- 
phan Tigers, and another company under Gene- 
ral Clark, as well as by General Stringfellow, 
with his brother, the doctor, who had left for a 
time his editorship to take a military command, 
and other leaders, who brought up all the law- 
less rabble of the border-towns, to aid in the 
attack. These on the west of Lawrence 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE 31 

formed the upper division. A large proportion 
were cavalry. The general control of the 
troops was in the hands of the United States 
Marshal, Donaldson, the whole body, of some 
six or eight hundred armed men, being re- 
garded as a i:iosse comkatus to aid this officer in 
the execution of his duties. 

By three o'clock on the morning of the 21st, 
Colonel Titus, with about two hundred horse- 
men, appeared on the crown of Mount Oread, 
overlooking the town of Lawrence. In a few 
hours the remaining portion of the upper divi- 
sion had reached the same position. Some 
occupied Governor Robinson's house, situated 
on tlie declivit}^ of the hill towards the town, 
which they made their headquarters ; others 
planted their cannon, of which they had several 
pieces, on the brow of the hill, in a position 
which commanded tlie city. Shortly after, the 
besieging army was reinforced by the arrival 
of the lower division, under Colonel Buford. 
A blood-red flag, inscribed with the words 
" Southern Rights" on the one side, and 
*' South Carolina" rudely painted on the other, 
was then raised over the invading troops. 



32 KAN. ^ AS. 

During the forenoon Fain, the Deputy-Mar- 
shal, entered Lawrence with some assistants, 
to make arrests of its citizens. He failed, 
however, in provoking the resistance desired, 
on which to found a pretext for attacking the 
city; for the citizens ])ermitted the arrests to 
be made, and responded to his demand for a 
*' posse" to aid him. He dined at the Free- 
state Hotel, at Messrs. Eld ridge's, the proprie- 
tors', expense, and returned with his posse 
and his prisoners to the hill occupied by the 
troops. 

The United States Marshal had now, he 
Btated, no more need of the troops ; but, as 
Sheriff Jones had some processes to serv^e in 
Lawrence, he would hand tliem over to him 
as a 2^ossc comitatus. 

Accordingly, in the afternoon, Jones rode 
into Lawrence at the head of twenty or more 
men, mounted and armed, and placed himself 
in front of the Free-state Hotel, demanding of 
General Pomeroy the surrender of all arms. 
He gave him five minutes for his decision, fail- 
ing which the posse would be ordered to bom- 
bard the town. General Pomeroy gave up 



GEN. 



their brass howitzer and some small pieces, 
the only arms that were not private property. 
Jones then demanded the removal of the furni- 
ture from the hotel, stating that the District 
Court for Douglas County had adjudged the 
hotel and the two free-state newspaper otiices 
to be nuisances, and as nuisances to be remov- 
ed, and that he was there as Sheriff to execute 
these indictments, and summarily remove the 
obnoxious buildings. 

In the mean time the forces had left the hill, 
and were at the entrance of the town, under 
Titus and Buford, Atchison and Stringfellow. 
General Atchison's address to his men on this 
occasion may be cited as an example of the 
mode of speech adopted by a late Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. From various 
reports of it made at the time, the following 
is gathered, being in substance and language 
that in which all agree : — 

*' Boys, this day I am a Kickapoo ranger, by 
This day we have entered Lawrence, 



' Southern Hights' inscribed on our banners, 

and not one abolitionist has dared to 

fire a gun. No, by , not one! This, boys, 



34 KANSAS. 

is the happiest clay of my whole life. We have 
entered the city, and to-night the abo- 
litionists will learn a Southern lesson that they 
will remember to the day of their death. And 
now, boys, we will go in with our highly hon- 
ourable Jones, and test the strength of that 
Free-state Hotel, and learn the Emi- 



grant Aid Society that Kansas shall be ours. 
Boys ! ladies should be, and I trust will be, 

respected by all gentlemen ; but, by , when 

a woman takes on herself the garb of a soldier 
by carrying a Sharpe's rifle, then she is no longer 

a woman, and, by , treat her for what you 

find her, and trample her under foot as you 

would a snake. By , come on, boys ! 

Now to your duties to yourselves and your 
Southern friends ! Your duty I know you will 
do ; and if a man or woman dare to stand be- 
fore you, blow them to hell with a chunk of 
cold lead !" 

Thus inspirited by their leaders, the Sheriff's 
posse, or rather the armed and inflamed rabble, 
proceeded to their work of demolition. The 
South Carolinians planted the red flag, with 
its lone star and its inscription of " Southern 
Rights," upon the roof of the large hotel. 
The banner of the Doniphan Tigers bore the 



REMOVAL OF NUISANCES. 36 

device of a tiger rampant. Another flag had 
black and white stripes ; and a fourth displayed 
in blue letters on a white ground the following 
admonitory lines : — 

*' Let Yankees tremble, 
And abolitionists fall ! 
Our motto is, 

' Give Southern ridits to all.' " 

The newspaper offices were the first objects 
of attack. First that of the Free State, then 
that of the Herald of Freedom, underwent a 
thorough demolition. The presses w^ere in 
each case broken to pieces, and the offending 
type carried away to the river. The papers 
and books were treated in like manner, until 
the soldiers became weary of carrying them to 
the Kaw, when they thrust them in piles into 
the street, and burnt, tore, or otherwise de- 
stroyed them. 

From the printing offices they w^ent to the 
hotel. The Eldridge House, or Free-state 
Hotel, was a building of size and strength. It 
was solidly built of stone and concrete, 
consisted of three stories above ground, 
had a breadth of five windows in the front, and 



S6 KAXhiAS. 

six windows on the side of the house. The 
Messrs. Eldridge had just completed its furnish- 
ing, and had well filled its store-rooms and 
cellars in anticipation of the wants of their 
guests. 

As orders were given to remove the furni- 
ture, the wild mob threw the articles out of 
the windows, but shortly found more congenial 
employment in emptying the ^ellars. By this 
time four cannon had been brought opposite 
the hotel, and, under Atchison's command, 
they commenced to batter down the building. 
In this, however, they failed. The GeneraPs 
''Now, boys, let her rip!" was answered by 
some of the shot missing the mark, although 
the breadth of Massachusetts-street alone inter- 
vened, and the remainder of some scores of 
rounds leaving the walls of the hotel unharm- 
ed. They then placed kegs of gunpowder in 
the lower parts of the building, and attempted 
to blow it up. The only result was, the shat- 
tering of some of the windows and other limit- 
ed damage. At length, to complete the work 
which their own clumsiness or inebriety had 
rendered difficult hitherto, orders were given to 



GENERAL PII-LAUE. 37 

fire the building in a number of places, and, as 
a consequence, it was soon encircled in a mass 
of flamtis. Before evening, all that remained 
of the Eldridge House was a portion of one 
wall standing erect, and for the rest a shapeless 
heap of ruins. 

The firing of the cannon had been the signal 
for most of the women and children in Law- 
rence to leave the city. This they did, not 
knowing whither to turn their steps. The 
male portion of its citizens watched, without 
offering resistance, the destruction of the build- 
ings named, and next had to see their own houses 
made the objects of unscrupulous plunder. 

The sack of Lawrence occupied the remain- 
der of the afternoon. Sherifi' Jones, after gaz- 
ing on the flames rising from the hotel, and 
saying that it was "the happiest day of his 
life," dismissed his "posse," and they immedi- 
ately commenced their lawless pillage. In 
this officers and men all participated, and they 
did not terminate until they had rifled all the 
principal houses of whatever articles of value 
they could lay their hands upon, and had de- 
stroyed that which they could not carry away. 



38. KANSAS. 

Finally, Governor Robinson's house on Mount 
Oread was set fire to, after it had been searched 
for papers and valuables, and its burning walls 
lit up the evening sky as the army of despera- 
does, now wild with plunder and excesses, and 
maddened with drink, retired from the pillaged 
city. 

The value of the property stolen and de- 
stroyed during the day in Lawrence is estimated 
to have amounted to nearly thirty thousand 
pounds sterling. 

Life was fortunately not taken, as the inhab- 
itants of Lawrence disappointed their invaders 
of a fight, by offering no resistance. The only 
deaths which occurred were of two young men 
in the pro-slavery ranks. One shot himself 
accidentally through the shoulder ; the other 
was killed by the South Carolina flag sweeping 
a brick from the roof of the hotel, which fell upon 
the young man's head and caused his death. 

Thus ended a day which filled Southern 
hearts with joy and pride. The next day the 
journals were filled with glowing accounts of 
victory, and of the glorious triumph obtained 
by law and order over fanaticism. 



THE DAY AFTER THE SACK. 39 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Day after the Sack.— Disbanding of the Forces.— Ruffians 
executing the Law.— Thirst.— Double Rectified.— A Night 
at Kansas City.— Appearance of the Mob. — Desperate Char- 
acters.— Grotesque Costume.— A Fearful Threat.— Night- 
trip on the Missouri.— Fellow-Travellers.—'' Border Ruf- 
fians.-'— A popular Orator.— Pleasant Repose.— Morning.— 
" Extras." — An Incident. — A respectable Merchant. — His 
Opinions.— The *' Old Hoss"' does not care about Breakfast. 
—A gentle Hint.— A better Set.— Civilities.— The persever- 
iug Merchant.— A Western Man.— Quiet Conversation.— 
Friendly Advice.— A Yankee is a Nuisance, and must be 
put down.— A candid Opinion. 

The (lay following the attack upon Law- 
rence being that of my own arrival in the 
territory, I am able to supply its later history 
from personal observation, and will endeavour to 
illustrate the condition of Kansas at that excit- 
ed time by a narrative of things seen and heard 
during the period of my visit. 

The border-ruffian forces employed in the 
siege and sack of Lawrence being disbanded, 
were to be seen on the following day spreading 
over the roads towards the east, carrying fury 



40 KANSAS. 

and violence wherever they went. Having 
once been taught that robbery and outrage, if 
committed in the service of the South, were to 
be regarded as deeds of loyalty and obedience, 
these ministers of a self-styled " law and order" 
were slow to unlearn a doctrine so acceptable. 
The day, like the preceding, was extremely 
hot, the thermometer standing at above ninety 
degrees ; their thirst knew no bounds ; and 
when a barrel of Bourbon, or Monongahela, or 
Double Rectified was accessible, they forgot 
even in some instances to ask the politics of its 
possessor. Thus through the day they sustain- 
ed their turbulent fury, and when night came, 
it found them prepared for any excesses. 

It was on that night that I first came in con- 
tact with the Missourian patriots. I had just 
arrived in Kansas city, and shall never forget 
the appearance of the lawless mob that poured 
into the place, inflamed with drink, glutted with 
the indulgence of the vilest passions, displaying 
with loud boasts the *' plunder" they had taken 
from the inhabitants, and thirsting for the op- 
portunity of repeating the sack of Lawrence in 
some other offending place. Men, for the most 



KUFFIANS AT LARGE. 41 

part of large frame, with red flannel shirts and 
immense boots worn outside their trousers, their 
faces unwashed and unshaven, still reeking with 
the dust and smoke of LawTence, wearing the 
most savage looks, and giving utterance to the 
most horrible imprecations and blasphemies ; 
armed, moreover, to the teeth with rifles and 
revolvers, cutlasses and bow^ie-knives, — such 
were the men I saw around me. Some dis- 
played a grotesque intermixture in their dress, 
having crossed their native red rough shirt with 
the satin vest or narrow dress-coat pillaged from 
the wardrobe of some Lawrence Yankee, or hav- 
ing girded themselves with the cords and tassels 
which the day before had ornamented the cur- 
tains of the Free-state Hotel. Looking around 
at these groups of drunken, bellowing, blood- 
thirsty demons, who crowded around the bar of 
the hotel, shouting for drink, or vented their 
furious noise on the levee without, I felt that 
all my former experiences of border men and 
Missourians bore faint comparison with the 
spectacle presented by this wretched crew, 
who appeared only the more terrifying from 
the darkness of the surrounding night. The 



42 KANSAS. 

hotel in Kansas city, where we were, was the 
next, they said, that should fall ; the attack was 
being planned that night, and such, they de- 
clared, should be the end of every place which 
was built by Free-state men, or that harboured 
''those rascally abolitionists." Happily this 
threat was not fulfilled. 

A number of these men became my com- 
panions for the night, as I went up by one 
of the Missouri steamboats from Kansas to 
Leavenworth city, which, as a convenient 
centre, I desired to make my headquarters 
whilst investigating the condition of affairs in 
the territory. The other fellow-passengers 
were, for the most part, of a like order. A 
few Germans, carrying their stock-in-trade, 
to turn an honest penny by peaceful traffic, 
while other people w^ere fighting ; a company 
of New Mexicans, making their way through 
Kansas to Santa Fe ; three or four persons 
more gentlemanly in appearance, to whom I 
shall again have occasion to refer; and, for 
the rest, a crowd of adventurers little better 
than those just taken on board, who might 
be classed generally under the head of " bor- 



A NIGHT-TRIP ON THE MISSOURI. 43 

der ruffians," made up, with a single exception 
or two, our travelling party for the night. 

A general rush to the bar ensued. Already- 
maddened with whisky, each would treat his 
fellow in arms : — 

" Step up, and liquor here, you sir. A heap 
finer this stuff than that there rot-gut ashore. 
Here, you sir ; don't be askeard. One of our 
boys, I reckon? All right on the goose, eh? 
No highfalutin' airs here, you know. Keep that 
for them Yankee Blue-bellies down East. If 
there's any of that sort here, I reckon they'd 
better make tracks, mighty quick, and that's a 
fact, while I'se on board, unless they w^ant to 
make a quicker road out than they came in. Yes, 
sir, this yere tool of mine [handling a pistol], 
it isn't the first time it has seen a Blue-belly. 
If there's any of that 'ere sort aboard, I say 
they'd better clear out, that's sartin. We ain't 
agoin' to stand them coming here, we ain't. 
Isn't their own place down East big enough 
for them, I should like to know? We ain't 
agoin' to stand their com in' and dictatin' to us 

with their nigger-worshipping, we ain't. 

I reckon we'll make the place hot enough for 
them soon, that's a fact. Here, boys, drink. 
Liquors, captain, for the crowd. Step up this 
way, old boss, and liquor." 



44 KANSAS. 

And thus the midnight talk went on — talk 
which I neither care to remember nor to re- 
peat, and in which I am compelled to omit the 
fearful expletives of blasphemy which inter- 
rupted, not every sentence merely, but every 
word or two of the dialogue. Others sat down 
to cards, and quarrelled over their losses ; some, 
more sleepy, threw themselves upon the cabin 
floor to rest, for it was already two hours past 
midnight. In all, there were nearly two hun- 
dred on board ; and as it was evident that the 
majority must sleep on the floor, I hastened to 
secure one of the berths, and thus to seek relief, 
if possible, from the distracting noise. In a 
smaller degree, I had had so much of a similar 
experience before, that I managed to sleep, only 
awakened at times by a louder shout from the 
bar or the gaming-table. 

In the morning, like my fellow-travellers, I 
was early astir. My Western companions, ac- 
customed to frequent potations, seemed already 
sobered down by their few hours' rest. If less 
boisterously demonstrative, however, in relation 
to " Yankee Abolitionists " than in the night, 
the change was only to an animosity of a more 



45 

calculating and determined character. News 
of fresh strife had been received during the 
night. "Extras" of the different journals, in 
the form of printers' slips, containing the latest 
intelligence, were put on board and largely- 
circulated. These invariably contained dis- 
torted accounts of the events of the hour, and 
appeals of a most inflammatory character. As 
they were read aloud to the eager listeners, they 
gave occasion to renewed determination to 
." fight the nigger-worshipping crew to the last 
drop of blood." One " extra" I obtained, issued 
by the Border Times at Westport, in wiiich the 
outrages at Lawrence were announced beneath 
the heading, " The Kansas Ball Opened — 
War in Earnest." In another, a Lecompton 
paper, the narrative was headed, ''Lawrence 
taken — Glorious Triumph of the Law- 
and-Order Party over Fanaticism in Kan- 
sas." When cold-blooded murder, which has 
left behind it destitution, widowhood, and or- 
phanage, comes to be regarded by journalists as 
the mere opening of a ball and a ground for 
exultation, it is not to be wondered at that the 
men who perpetrated these deeds were eager to 



46 KANSAS. 

acquire fresh glory in the achievement of fur 
ther " triumphs." 

A single incident must suffice as an illustra- 
tion. Before I had left my berth many minutes, 
I was attracted by the blustering talk of one 
of my fellow-travellers — " one of the most re- 
spectable merchants in Weston," as I was 
informed, but one who, as was evident, did not 
deny himself in the rum-punch, gin-sling, whis- 
ky-straights, brandy-cocktails, and other com- 
pounds issued at the bar. 

This respectable merchant was surrounded, 
as he stood in the cabin of the boat, by a 
circle, which I joined. Out of a side-pocket 
protruded the head of a pistol ; in his hand 
he brandished another, loaded, as he told us, 
and ready for action. With threatening aspect 
and attitude, he poured forth, amid many oaths, 
the following language, addressed to us all : — 

" I am bound to bring down some one before 

I'm done ; I tell you, by I am. I'll teach 

these infernal nigger-stealing Free-soilers a les- 
son right peartly, that's a fact. If there's a dog- 
gauned Abolitionist aboard, I should like to see 
him, that I should. I'm the man to put a chunk 



POLITICS BEFORE BREAKFAST. 47- 

o' lead into his woolly head, right off; yes, sir, 
that's what I'll do." 

Then, looking round at each of us, '' I reckon 
I can raise the top off the head of ere a one of 
you with this hyere tool. Speak the word, 

and, by , I'm your man. That's so. I 

should like to see the first Free-soiler that opens 
his mouth ; that I should. I'd send him to hell 
pretty quick, afore he know'd what he was 
about; that's what I'd do. I'm a mighty 
ce-urious customer, Jam." 

And so thought, probably, one of his hearers, 
for he said to the curious customer, " Come, 
old boss, won't you have some breakfast?" 
The old horse was not to be so easily diverted, 
however. 

" Breakfast ! think I'd be after breakfast 
when I've got my duty before me ? No, sir, 
exercise is the thing for me — not eating. I 
tell you I'm bound to drop some one afore I'm 
done — that I am. I've got to fight for the 
liberties of my country and our glorious consti- 
tution, and rid the place of those cowardly 
blue-bellied Yankies. Yes, sir, that's what I've 
got to do. I should like to know what they've 
to do in this hyere place, with their snarlin', 
sneakin', whittlin'-o'-nothin' ways. I tell you 



48 KANSAS. 

there's not a man amongst them as knows how 
to fight. I should like to see the first one as '11 
open his mouth here, — that's what I should 
like to see. I tell you I'm a ce-urious cus- 
tomer. Yes, sir-ree; my dog knows that," 
pointing to a large dog that seemed prepared 
to stand by his master for better or worse. 
Then, *'I should like to sot my eyes on the 
man as would touch that 'ere dog of mine. I'd 
lay him dead in a moment, that I would. Just 
see me." 

None of us felt inclined to touch the dog, and 
the respectable merchant returned to his poli- 
tics and patriotism. 

" No Northern nigger-stealers here. I'll fix 
'em up mighty smart, I will. I ain't here for 
nothing, and that you'll see, just about as soon 
as anything. Yes, sir^ I only want to see the 
first Free-soiler here. I'll drop the first one of 
you that opens his mouth for abolition cusses ; 
I be dog-gauned if I don't." 

And thus this valiant patriot went on for 
about half an hour, ringing the changes on these 
few forms of expression, and giving every one 
an opportunity to accept his challenge and take 
the consequences. 



FELLOW-TRAVELLERS. 49 

I remained no lon2:er in this Western mer- 
chant's immediate presence than was necessary 
to prevent my becoming an object of his 
suspicion. Being anxious to obtain some inform- 
ation as to the hotels or other places of resort 
in Leavenworth, I went up on the hurricane- 
deck, having been told I should there meet 
with some who could answer my inquiries. I 
found on the upper deck the few more gentle- 
manly persons to whom I have referred, but 
whom, until this moment, I had not seen. One 
or two appeared to be United States officers, 
men of education and refinement. Another, a 
gentleman more advanced in years, held him- 
self somewhat apart, and appeared engaged in 
anxious thought. He had an eye full of bright 
intelligence, and wore the aspect of one who 
w^as superior to those about him. I gained the 
information I sought from one of the officers, 
and took his recommendation to go to M'Car- 
ty's hotel at Leavenworth, where he himself 
was about to stop. I did not knov/ as yet, 
however, who were my companions, and could 
only get evasive replies to my inquiries on the 

subject from the clerk of the boat. 
.'3 



60 KANSAS. 

I again descended to the cabin. The respect- 
able merchant from Weston was still continuing 
his challenges, pistol in hand. 

" I should like to see the first one as '11 open 
his mouth. I reckon he'd have to take the 
change mighty smart. Lead 's the best argu- 
ment for these infernal white-livered Yankees. 
Let me alone for tamin' them down ; yes, sir; 
let me alone for that, I say. I reckon they 
won't be a tryin' on this game again a little 
whiles. That's just about what I think." 

And so on without intermission. 

At my side stood a young man who had lived 
for some years in Kansas territory, trading with 
the Indians. We had travelled in company during 
four or five days in coming up the Missouri, 
aud our intercourse had led to a certain degree 
of mutual confidence. He was a thorough 
Western man, and, at the same time, a favour- 
able specimen of his class, possessing in a large 
degree the better traits which mark the Western 
character, and displaying few of the worse. 
As we should soon have to part, he inquired of 
me what part of the Union I came from. I 
replied, in a tone which I hoped would not 



FRIENDLY COUNSEL. 51 

catch the ear of the noisy patriot in arms, that 
he had mistaken me as a native of the Union, 
and that I belonged to the old country, my 
home being London. 

" Indeed," said my friend the Indian trader, 
'* I calculated you were a Northern man. Your 
dress and looks aren't like our people's out 
West." 

" That is probable," I replied. 

** Yes, that's so," he proceeded, " and there's 
several aboard as have been talking about 
you, and they've all set you down for a 
Northerner." 

I hinted, in reply, that I had no desire to 
excite remark on board, and glanced suggest- 
ively at our neighbour who was threatening to 
blow the brains out of the first Northern man 
who should open his mouth. My friend per- 
ceived my meaning immediately, and, dropping 
his voice to a whisper, said : — 

" Well, Colonel, just let me, as one that 
knows the ways of the people here, give you a 
word of caution, which you may find useful, 
now that you're setting foot in these here 
Western diggins. Don't let a soul of them 



52 KANSAS. 

know that you're an Englishman. Should it 
get out, it's just as much as your life is worth, 
mind that. That's the state we're in just now, 
all alongside of that cursed slavery question. 
If you say you're an Englishman it's all the 
same as being a Yankee; not a bit better. 
And you know the law there — a Yankee is 
a nuisance, and nuisances must be abolished. 
That's what they all say there. So you mind, 
Colonel ; and don't forget what I say." 

I thanked my friendly adviser, and told 
him I had already determined to follow his 
counsel. 

As for himself, he said, he did not believe 
the Southern men had any right to do what 
they had done in Kansas ; but being a thorough 
Western man, and known in the territory for 
years, he could go about and they would not 
touch him, especially as he did not take part 
with the Abolitionist fanatics. If they did 
touch him, everybody knew what would be the 
consequence. And as I looked at his fine ath- 
letic frame, and noticed the powerful muscle 
of his arm and the steady gaze of his eye, long 
trained to guide the bead of his rifle, I thought 
I, too, could perceive what would be the conse- 



FRIENDLY COU-\SEL. 53 

quence of having this Western man for an 
enemy. But he had given me wise counsel and 
kind, and I was glad to think the son of the 
prairie was my friend. 



M KANSAS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Leavenworth City. — Going on Shore.--A State Prisoner. — 
Governor Robioson in Custody. — Scanty Accommodation. — 
Governor Robinson's Examination. — Horrid Threats. — Office 
of the Hotel. — A Border-ruffian Armoury.— A Free-soiler 
Silenced. — How to settle the Abolitionists. — Southern " Fix- 
ins.'- — Fort Leavenworth.— Gambling Houses.— A Night of 
shameless "Wickedness and unchecked Outrage. — Governor 
Robinson's Arrest.— Fierce Threats.- Fears of a Rescue. — 
Committee of Investigation. — Beware of the Hemp. — Arrest 
of Free-state Men. — State of Parties. — Revulsion of Feeling. 
— Organization of Guerrilla Parties.— Frequent Collisions. 

By about nine o'clock, a.m., the steamboat had 
reached Leavenworth city. It would excite a 
smile if I were to describe the aspect of this 
*' city" of log-houses and w^ooden shanties ; as 
it would if I were to narrate the manifold 
adventures incident to Western travel. But 
that is beside my purpose. The majority of 
the passengers, with myself, landed. A great 
crowd received us, all evidently eager with 
expectation and excitement. To my astonish- 
ment, the moment after landing I perceived 



A STATE PRISONER. 55 

that the older gentleman whom I had seen on 
the hurricane-deck of the steamboat was a 
prisoner. Surrounded by a number of persons, 
including the United States officers, he was led 
off towards M'Carty's hotel, my purposed place 
of stay. "Who's that they've got there?" 
*' Who's that been caught, eh?" w^ere the eager 
questions put on many sides. " It's Governor 
Robinson, been brought round from Lawrence 
by way of Kansas city," was the reply of one 
in the crowd. " Governor Robinson, Governor 
Robinson ! Who taught you to call that in- 
fernal nigger-stealer Governor, I should like to 
know?" was the instantaneous rejoitider. *' Say 
the word again, and I will blow your brains out 
for an Abolition traitor ; he is Doctor Robinson, 
and nothing else, that's what he is, and he 
shan't be that long. It's time we'd got shet 
of these dog-gauned Abolitionists." Thus sur- 
rounded by the menaces and imprecations of a 
savage mob, the Free-state Governor was led 
up the steep road which conducted to the small 
wooden house known as M'Carty's hotel. 

I followed, and, first inquiring for my own 
accommodation, was met by the answer that if 



-^^ KAXP.IS. 

I would come in again at night I might take a 
chance of a place on tlic floor. This was suffi- 
ciently unpromising. I then went to a larger 
house, tlie headquarters of the Pro-slavery 
party, hut met with no better reception. Leav- 
ing, therefore, the question of accommodation, 
I returned to M'Carty's, where I was informed 
I could get a meal. Governor Robinson I 
found in the front room of the house ; he was 
standing up, and was being put through a close 
examination by those in the room. A lar^-er 
number had collected outside the open windows 
and door, and, as I stood amidst this crowd, I 
heard the constantly repeated expressions, 

" Let i/s get hold of him ; if we don't 

sarve him out, powerful quick. The hangin* 
bone villain, be may say his prayers mighty 
smart now. I'll be dog-gauned if we don't 
string him up afore the day's out. Hangin's a 
'nation siglit too good for him, the mean cuss. 
He ought to have a shot through his head rio-ht 
away — that's hou^ I'd sarve him." 

Sick of hearing such expressions, mingled 
with the vilest oaths, I went into the office of 
the hotel, and sat down on a vacant chair to 



A BOKDEU-KUFriAX ARMOURY. 57 

meditate and to observe. In the corner of the 
room, in place of trunlvs and travelling-bags, 
were rifles and double-barrels, dirks and sticks, 
of that weight and calibre which only a "Western 
American thinks of carrying. The clerk and 
the persons passing in and out had nothing to 
speak of but "the fighting." On the counter 
were papers, heading their columns with the 
words — " War to the knife." Everything 
around was suggestive of warfare and blood- 
shed. 

I had sat for a few minutes, when there 
entered a man — a Southerner by his very looks. 
" Hand me a pair out of them hundred pistols 
I left with you. Captain," were the words 
which, with a slow drawling voice, he addressed 
to the clerk at the counter. The large number 
of instruments owned by our visitor suggested 
that he was taking advantage of the existing 
demand, by *' trafficking" a few small-arms. 
We awaited, however, his remarks. Glancing 
his cool eye at me and another in the room, and 
anticipating probably that we might desire an 
explanation, he slowly added — " I've just had 
a turn down here with a Free-soiler." 



58 KANSAS. 

We still looked inquiringly, and as he adjusted 
his pistols in his belt, he proceeded for our 
satisfaction — " I'd got nothing with me. I 
didn't ought to have left these here tools behind 
this morning, I allow. Anyways, I didn't leave 
him till I made him give in. He came out 
with his onremittin' abolitionism. I settled 
him though, a heap quicker, I reckon, than he 
expected. I tell you how I done. I jest put 
my hand behind me, like this, the same as 
though I had got my^ pistols with me, and 
looked kinder ugly — down on him like, you 
know ; and so, with my hand upon the pistols, 
as he reckoned, he didn't stand out long. But 
I felt mighty bad, I tell you, till I got the 
draw on him, as he expected. Still I wasn't 
goin' to stand his sarcy talk, in course, so I jest 
shut him up mighty quick." By this time the 
pistols were adjusted, and as he walked out, 
their valiant wearer continued a kind of soli- 
loquy — " Well, reckon I'm fixed now ! They 
won't be so sarcy with their talk now that I've 
these here fixins on. I brought him down a 
kinder smart, I reckon. Expect he felt chawed 
up some. Well, I calculate they won't be 



SCENES y.N LEAVENWORTH. 59 

BO sarcy now. I'll see jest who next I'll 
meet." 

From the city of Leavenworth I went before 
noon to visit the Fort. I found it at about 
three miles' distance, beautifully situated on a 
lofty blufl*, overlooking the Missouri, and suffi- 
ciently elevated in position for its white walls 
and familiar flag-staff to be seen for many miles 
across the i'ar-stretching prairie. There was a 
feeling of security and retirement about the 
Fort, which rendered a resort to it an agreeable 
relief from the angry excitement which pre- 
vailed in all other places. Add to this, a visit 
to Fort Leavenworth gave one the opportunity 
of meeting the only society the neighbourhood 
afforded. I have many pleasing recollections 
of my intercourse on these occasions with the 
officers stationed at Fort Leavenworth, chief 
among whom must be mentioned Colonel 
Sumner, at that time in command of the gar- 
rison, with whom I had much interesting 
conversation on the troubled condition of the 
territory, and from whom I received, during my 
stay in Leavenworth, much kindness and hospi- 
tality. 



60 KANSAS. 

The scenes of the twelve hours I have 
described — from midnight of the 23rd of Ma}^ 
185G, to noon of the 24:th — were repeated dur- 
ing my few days' stay in Leavenworth, without 
intermission. As the night advanced, the 
ceaseless w^hisky-drinking show^ed its fruits. 
Pistols went off sometimes unguardedly; knots 
of people collected at each street-corner. The 
bar-rooms in the hotels, which were all politi- 
cal clubs, became crowded with noisy debaters, 
planning the great deeds they were to perform 
on the morrow. Numberless gambling-houses 
were the resort of others. Cards could have 
been picked up in the streets by the score; 
and in a town where the very first demands of 
civilization were wanting in the furnishing of 
the house, there was no lack of such costly 
indulgences as gaming-tables, which reminded 
one of Baden-Baden or Hamburg. No element 
of vice or crime seemed to be absent. Every 
species of shameless wickedness and unchecked 
outrage met one's gaze at every turn. 

My owm accommodation at night was of the 
worst. I was subject to frequent interruptions 
of armed intruders, whom I could not keep out 



GOVERXOll IIOBINSOX S ARREST. 



61 



of my room ; and by clay I had to listen per- 
petually to conversation which was painfully 
revolting. On the day of my arrival, the 
seizure of Governor Robinson was, of course, 
the principal topic. He had been seized, I 
ascertained, during the previous week, at Lex- 
ington, in Missouri, whilst openly travelling 
towards St. Louis, in company with Mrs. 
Robinson. His captors were not at the time 
possessed of any indictment against him, but 
detained him by main force, and threats of 
murder at the hands of the crowd, if he should 
fail to consent. He was then conveyed to 
Westport, on the border line, and detained 
there until the attack upon Lawrence was 
completed. The following night he arrived 
under guard at Franklin, within four miles of 
Lawrence, where he was intercepted by a mes- 
sage from Governor Shannon, requiring him to 
be taken to Leavenworth by way of Kansas 
city, to avoid a rescue. By a circuitous route, 
therefore, he was again brought down to Kansas 
city, where he arrived in the night, a short 
time before the departure of the steamboat on 
board of which I first met him. ^ 



62 KANSAS. 

Throughout the day stories were circulated 
about the Free-state governor, for which there 
was not the shadow of a foundation. Every 
minute some fresh charge was brought, or some 
new threat uttered against him. 

" If I had caught his track, if I wouldn't 

have shot him dead. I told him so at the 
inquiry. I'd have smashed his head right out. 
I don't care if it isn't true. I told him I 
should believe it, all the same, till he proved it 
wasn't. He is a flung up, pilfering, pup- 
py ; that's what he is, fix it which way you 
like." 

Judge Lecompte came down to Leavenworth 
in the evening to see Dr. Robinson. The next 
day I also saw Governor Shannon. Rumours 
were put into circulation that the Free-state 
men intended to attempt a rescue of their lead- 
er during the night. Committees were held in 
consequence to organize a defence ; and few 
probably retired to rest that night in Leaven- 
worth city with the expectation of remaining 
till morning without a summons to arms. 

The Committee of Investigation appointed 
by Congress was also sitting at Leavenworth 



A HEMP CAUTION. 68 

during my stay. The enormities that were 

brought to light embittered exceedingly the 

Pro-slavery party ; and many threats were 

made against the persons of those who gave 

their testimony, as well as the lives of the com- 

* 
missioners. Some of these threats, whilst they 

were terribly real, were at the same time suffi- 
ciently ludicrous; as, for example, the follow- 
ing manifesto, which appeared one Monday 
morning during my stay in Leavenworth, 
scrawled upon a piece of paper, which was 
affixed to the door of the office occupied by 
the Committee. 

" May, 26. 
" Messrs. Howard and Sherman. 

" Sirs, with feelings of Surprise and Dis- 
gust wee have been noticeing the unjust man- 
ner in which you have been Conducting this 
Investigation. Wee wish to inform you can 
no longer sit in this place. 

" Wee therefore request You to alter your 
Obnoxious course, in order to avoid the Con- 
sequences which may otherwise follow. 

*' Capt. Hemp — in behalf of the citizens. 
** Leavenworth City — 1856." 



G4 KANSAS. 

Mr. Howard, on entering the office, was ob- 
served to take down the paper containing the 
symbolical Capt. Hemp's declaration of inten- 
tions, and, folding it up with a smile, placed it 
in his pocket. 

On the third day of my stay, several Free- 
state men were arrested; among them Judge 
Conway, then acting as clerk of the Committee 
of Investigation, and two of the witnesses. 
They announced it also as their intention not 
to let a single Free-soiler escape. 

Among all the scenes of violence I witness- 
ed, it is remarkable that the offending parties 
were invariably on the Pro-slavery side. The 
Free-state men appeared to me to be intimid 
ated and overawed, in consequence, not merely 
of the determination and defiant boldness of 
their opponents, but still more through the 
sanction given to these acts by the Govern- 
ment. 

I often heard the remark, that they would 
resist, but that they were resolved not to bring 
themselves into collision with the Federal 
power. The policy of the Free-state party, 
prior to the 21st May, was one of determined 



HOSTILITIES PnOVOKED. 65 

non-resistance, the people being connselled to 
give no ground of offence or pretext for vio- 
lence, and to seek a restoration of justice and 
order through legal redress alone. That this 
was the spirit in which they acted, is very evi- 
dent from the documents and public appeals 
which issued from them at that period. These 
documents indicate, indeed, a degree of sub- 
mission which it is difficult to reconcile with a 
proper independence, and which gives some 
colour to the charge often brought against the 
Free-state men by their opponents, that they 
were " a set of cowards, who, when it came to 
fighting, would be certain to give in." 

Their later conduct, however, was different. 
In the hands of their oppressors all justice had 
been set at defiance. They had been driven 
out of house and home by an armed mob, act- 
ing under territorial authority. The Federal 
power had been appealed to in vain. The 
Free-state men were driven to desperation. It 
w^as but natural that some revulsion of feeling 
should be experienced. As it was, guerrilla 
parties were organized by some of the less 
passive spirits on the Free-state side, corre- 



66 



KANSAS. 



spending with those already existing amongst 
their opponents. These thought themselves 
justified in recovering stolen horses and other 
property. Other acts of retaliation occurred. 
In several instances the opposing parties came 
into collision, and violence ensued. For some 
time, therefore, after the attack upon Lav^^rence, 
an irregular strife v^^as maintained, and a bitter 
remembrance filled each man's mind, and im- 
pelled to daily acts of hostility and not unfre- 
quent bloodshed. 



WHY ARK SUCH OUTKAGES PERMITTED. 67 



CHAPTER VI. 

Why are such Outrages permitted ? — Total Failure of Justice. 
— The Jeffreys of the Territory. — A Test required. — An im- 
pious Oath. — Affirmation of the Nebraska-Kansas Act and 
the Fugitive Slave Law. — Judge, Jury, and Law. — All one 
"Way. — Sample of the Kansas Statutes.— Ball and Chain. — 
Freedom of Speech forbidden. — Punishment of Death.— 
Abuse of the Term '-Law." — No Hope of Justice for Free- 
state Men. 

Each party in Kansas lays claim to the title 
of " law-abiding and order-loving." The Pro- 
slavery party, being in power, especially boasts 
of its affection for " law and order," and 
preaches to its political opponents submission 
to the constituted authorities. 

Yet the brief history of the territory has 
been little else than a succession of unjust op- 
pressions and violent usurpations. It has 
been the holiday of crime and wrong, anarchy 
and bloodshed. Month after month, English- 
men living in their peaceful homes have been 
startled by the intelligence of new oppressions 



68 KANSAS. 

and new outrages committed in Kansas, until 
they have begun to ask, Are these events occur- 
ring in a civilized land ? Does the country 
really possess a government ? Is it true that it 
is under the direct control of the Congress of 
the United States? Has it really its Governor 
and Secretary, its Chief Justice and Associate 
Judges, its Marshals and Sheriffs, its lav^s and 
law-officers, of which we read, or are these 
mere empty titles? In general, how are the 
extraordinary anomalies, v^'hich a condition of 
affairs like that in Kansas implies, to be ac- 
counted for ? How comes it that such enormi- 
ties are permitted? Why is not a remedy 
applied ? 

To the solution of such inquiries I propose 
to devote the present and succeeding chapter. 

The first and most natural question is. If 
such fearful outrages, as every mail brings us 
intelligence of, are being committed in Kansas, 
why are not the perpetrators of these enormi- 
ties brought to justice ? Is there no judge, no 
jury, no law, to which appeal can be made for 
protection ? 

The answer is simple. First, the man is 



JUDGES AXD JURIES. 69 

wanting who possesses boldness or rashness 
enough to bring the oifending parties to jus- 
tice. Murder and cold-blooded assassination 
were of almost daily occurrence at the time of 
my visit; but whoever should dare to report 
such a case would be at once a marked man, 
and his life, in all probability, before the day 
had expired, would be the penalty for his im- 
prudence in the cause of right. 

But, supposing the offender to be brought 
to justice, who is the judge, of what character 
the jury, and what the law by which he has to 
be tried ? 

The judge would be such a man as Chief 
Justice Lecompte — the Jeffreys of the terri- 
tory. Or, if not the chief of the " bloody 
assizes" of Kansas, it would be some other 
minion of the slave power, panting after the 
extermination of every Free-state advocate, 
and pledged by his oath of office to sustain the 
most offensive measures which the slave power 
has introduced. It cannot be otherwise, for all 
the public offices are occupied by most reso- 
lute adherents of the pro-slavery cause; and, 
lest any one of a different stamp should creep 



70 KANSAS, 

in, a test is demanded, contrary to the consti- 
tution of the United States, of every candidate 
for office, according to which he is required to 
subscribe an oath, " solemnly swearing upon 
the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God," that 
he will " support and sustain the provisions of 
the act entitled 'An Act to Organize the Terri- 
tories of Nebraska and Kansas,' and the pro- 
visions of the law of the United States com- 
monly known as the * Fugitive Slave Law.' " 
— {Vide " Statutes of the Territory of Kansas," 
page 438.) Thus, by the law of the territory, 
no man can sit on the bench, or hold any other 
public office, unless he have first specially 
indorsed and pledged himself to sustain the 
two most extreme pro-slavery measures that 
can possibly be cited. 

If such be the judge, the jury would also be 
of a character no less accurately defined by 
statute. What is the law of Kansas concerning 
jurors? "No person who is conscientiously 
opposed to the holding of slaves, or who does 
not admit the right to hold slaves in this terri- 
tory, shall be a j uror in any cause in which the 
right to hold any person in slavery is involved, 



JUDGES AXD JURIES. 71 

nor in any cause in which any injury done to, 
or committed by, any slave is in issue, nor in 
any criminal proceeding for the violation of 
any law enacted for the protection of slave 
property, and for the punishment of crime 
committed against the right to such property." 
— (Statutes of Kansas, p. 378.) Again, by the 
first section of the act, the power is placed in 
the hands of the "Marshal, Sheriff, or other 
officer, to summon a sufficient number of 
jurors." — (p. 377.) And who are Marshal and 
Sheriff? Donaldson and his deputy Fain are 
the former; Samuel Jones is the most noted 
of the latter: together, the destroyers of Law- 
rence, and the hunters of Free-state men, even 
to the death. With such a law, and with a 
discretionary power vested in such hands, it 
will be seen at once what kind of jury must, 
of necessity, be procured. 

And if such be the character of judge and 
jury, what are the laws they have to dispense? 
Take a sample : 

*'If any person print, write, introduce into, 
publish, or circulate, or cause to be brought 
into, printed, written, published, or circulated, 



72 KANSAS. 

or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing 
into, printing, publishing, or circulating, with- 
in this territory, any book, paper, pamphlet, 
magazine, hand-bill, or circular, containing any 
statements, arguments, opinions, sentiment, 
doctrine, advice, or innuendo, calculated to 
produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious 
disaiFection among the slaves in this territory, 
or to induce such slaves to escape from the 
service of their masters, or to resist their au- 
thority, he shall be guilty of felony, and be 
punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a 
term of not less than five years." — (Statutes, 
cap. 151, sec. 11.) 

*' If any free person, by speaking or writing, 
assert or maintain that persons have not the 
right to hold slaves in this territory, or shall 
introduce into this territory, print, publish, 
write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into 
this territory, written, printed, published, or 
circulated in this territory, any book, paper, 
magazine, pamphlet, or circular, containing 
any denial of the right of persons to hold 
slaves in this territory, such person shall be 
deemed guilty of felony, and punished by im- 
prisonment at hard labor for a term of not less 
than two years." — (Statutes, cap. 151, sec. 12.) 

And what kind of hard labour is the North- 



BALL AND CHAIX. 73 

em man to undergo who should be lucklessly 
brought before a Kansas judge and convict- 
ed of denying the right to hold slaves in the 
territory? This is defined in the same code, 
where, after providing that every person so sen- 
tenced shall be deemed a convict, and shall be 
put to hard labour on the streets, roads, public 
buildings, or other public works of the ter- 
ritory, the act continues : — 

" And the keeper shall cause such convict, 
while engaged in such labour, to be securely 
confined by a chain six feet in length, of not 
less than 4-16ths nor more than 3-Sths of an 
inch links, with a round ball of iron of not 
less than four nor more than six inches in dia- 
meter attached, which chain shall be securely 
fastened to the ankle of such convict with a 
strong lock and key ; and such keeper or other 
person having charge of such convict may, if 
necessary, confine such convict while so en- 
gaged at hard labour, by other chains or other 
means, in his discretion, so as to keep such 
convict secure and prevent his escape ; and 
when there shall be two or more convicts 
under the charge of such keeper or other per- 
son, such convicts shall be fastened together 
by strong chains, with strong locks and keys, 



74 KANSAS. 

during the time such convicts shall be en- 
gaged in hard labour without the walls of 
any jail or prison". — (Statutes, cap. 22, 
sec. 2.) 

Further, the convict may be '* employed 
upon private hiring at labour" for the benefit of 
the territorial treasury (cap. 22, sec. 3). The 
person who gives utterance to a free thought* 
therefore, may be placed at the will of the Pro- 
slavery rulers, at the side, if they please, of 
their negro slaves, to labour in their fields or 
elsewhere, whilst they drag after them the 
heavy ball and chain, symbol of their subjec- 
tion to the slave power. 

For greater " offences against slave property" 
the law provides, of course, a severer penalty. 
To aid in any rebellion of slaves against their 
masters, to bring into the territory any book 
or tract calculated to excite rebellion on the 
part of slaves, free negroes, or mulattoes, to 
carry out of the territory a slave belonging to 
another, or to assist in the same, are all capital 
offences, to be punished by death. 

The man, therefore, who possesses a copy of 
** Uncle Tom's Cabin" is, in Kansas, on a par 



LAW. 



76 



with the murderer. His guilt demands the 
heaviest penalty the law can inflict. But with- 
out arguing from cases so extreme, let it be re- 
membered that the utterance of even a syllable 
against the right of holding slaves is made 
punishable by two years' imprisonment and 
hard labour on the public roads, with a chain 
of six feet and a round ball of iron attached to 
the ankle, and it will at once be seen whether 
the law was made for the Pro-slavery or for the 
Free-state men. Add to this the fact that 
every act of the Free-state party, if viewed in 
the light of the laws as interpreted by the 
Federal government, is an act of treason against 
the Federal power, and it will be perceived 
what opportunity is given for the most cruel 
despotism and the grossest wrong to take refuge 
in the name and under the sanction of the law. 
*' Law," in fact, was the word constantly in 
the mouths of the self-styled border ruflians, 
with whom I myself came daily into contact 
in Kansas. So far from not appealing to it, 
everything they did, every enormity they com- 
mitted, was done in the name of the law of 
the land. The constant taunt thrown out 



76 KANSAS. 

against the Free-state party, and the chief diffi- 
culty they themselves experienced, was the op- 
position in which they stood to the recognized 
law. " Law and order" became the watch-word 
and war-cry of the most lawless in the territory ; 
and the words "a posse of law-and-order men" 
were synonymous with a company of freebooters 
and murderers ranging the country in search 
of their political opponents. The law, therefore, 
was all on one side. And it will be seen that, 
with enactments demanding the conviction of 
all who spoke or acted against slavery, and a 
judge and jury no less desiring their extermina- 
tion, the wronged Free-state man, though he 
should have been struck down in the highway 
and robbed of his all, had more to lose than 
gain by a recourse to the legal power. 



WHENCE DO SUCH LAWS COME ? 77 



CHAPTER VII. 

Southern Law-makers. — Perversion of Authority. — A fraudu- 
lent Legislature in Power.— The "Blue Lodge." — The 
Electors overawed. — General Stringfellow's Speech. — The 
Physical Force Argument. — How to get a Majority. — Ille- 
gal Votes. — Not Four per Cent. Legal. — Terrorism. — Poll- 
ing. — The Congress Report. — Right of Might. — A forcible 
Persuader. — Conclusions of the Committee of Investigation.— 
A Poll-tax. — Pro-Slavery Votes purchasable by Law. — Anti- 
Slavery Votes pronounced void by Law. — Public Documents 
cited. — Laws worse than Draconian. 

The reader may be tempted further to ask, how 
hiws so glaringly unreasonable and unjust as 
those cited in the preceding chapter could have 
become the laws of the land ? By what power 
or authority were they enacted ? 

Answer. — They were enacted by a falsely 
chosen but authoritatively recognized Territo- 
rial Legislature. This Legislature, viewed by 
the general Government as the voice of the 
people, becomes, of necessity, lawgiver to the 
people of the territory ; and not only gives the 
laws, but assumes to itself the right to define 



7S KANSAS. 

its own authority. In this way the legal 
existence of this assembly as a legislative body 
has been determined by itself, and, being back- 
ed by the United States troops, the so-called 
Kansas Legislature has had almost all power in 
its own hands. This is the Legislature for 
which the votes were taken on the 30th of 
March, 1855, and which, first meeting at Paw- 
nee, was afterwards removed to the Shawnee 
Mission, to be more conveniently near the 
Missouri border. It is true, the election was 
repudiated as fraudulent and unfair by the 
Free-state population, and that they acted 
independently of it in causing a fresh election 
to take place on the 9th of October, 1S55. 
This resulted in the convention for organizing 
a State Government, w^iich met at Topeka, and 
the subsequent election of State officers and 
members of the General Assembly. When this 
Assembly met the second time at Topeka, 
on the 4th of July last, it will be remembered 
that Colonel Sumner forcibly dissolved the 
Assembly at the head of a considerable body of 
United States troops, at the same time indicat- 
ing his own view of the proceeding by stating 



THE LEGISLATURE fN OFFICE BY FRAUD. 79 

that it was " the most painful duty of his whole 
life." Repudiated, however, as the "bogus" 
Legislature is on the part of the whole Free- 
state population, it still maintains its power, 
and gives laws to the territory. 

But how, it may next be asked, is this 
charge established, of the Legislature to which 
the Federal Government gives the sanction of 
its approval and the aid of its troops, being thus 
falsely and fraudulently chosen ? 

This fact admits of very easy proof. Long 
before the first election in Kansas, a secret socie- 
ty had been in existence in Missouri, generally 
known as the " Blue Lodge," the avowed pur- 
pose of which was, by a systematic organiza- 
tion, to control the elections in Kansas. By 
this agency immense armed bands of men from 
Missouri were poured into Kansas, and, under 
the generalship of efficient leaders, so distributed 
through the electoral districts as to outnumber 
and overawe the resident voters. The character 
of these men may be inferred from an address 
delivered by one of their chief leaders, General 
Stringfellow, of Weston, in Missouri. General 
Stringfellow is the brother of the Speaker in 



80 KANSAS. 

the Legislative Assembly. The style of his 
address is very characteristic. 

" I tell you to mark every scoundrel among 
you that is the least tainted with free-soilism 
or abolitionism, and exterminate him. Neither 

give nor take quarter from the • rascals. 

I propose to mark them in this house, and on 
the present occasion, so you may crush them 
out. To those who have qualms of conscience 
as to violating laws, state or national, the time 
has come when such impositions must be disre- 
garded, as your rights and property are in 
danger ; and I advise you, one and all, to enter 
every election district in Kansas, in defiance of 
Keeder and his vile myrmidons, and vote at 
the point of the bowie-knife and the revolver. 
Neither give nor take quarter, as our case de- 
mands it. It is enough that the slaveholding 
interest wills it, from which there is no appeal. 
What right has Governor Reeder to rule Mis- 
sourians in Kansas? His proclamation and 
prescribed oath must be repudiated. It is 
your interest to do so. Mind that slavery is 
established where it is not prohibited." 

And as their leader advised them so they 
did. They neither gave nor took quarter ; they 
allowed no qualms of conscience as to violating 



TIO'.V TO GET A MAJORITY. 81 

laws ; and they entered every electoral district 
in Kansas, aiid, in defiance of the rightful gov- 
ernor, voted at the point of the bowie-knife 
and the revolver. The result was a majority, 
almost as ten to one, in favour of the pro- 
slavery candidate, General Whitfield. Exact 
returns from each district have since been 
obtained by the Committee of Investigation, 
and from their report presented to Congress, I 
will extract one or two examples of the fraud 
practised by this invading army. 

The seventh district is a remote settlement, 
as yet very sparsely inhabited, and containing 
by census not more than 53 voters. In this 
district alone no less than 597 votes were cast 
for Whitfield, and seven for another candidate, 
making in all 604, of which it has been ascer- 
tained that not more than 20 were legal, the 
remaining 584 being consequently illegal votes. 
In the eleventh district, Marysville, " the total 
number of white inhabitants, including men, 
women, and children, was 36, of whom 24 were 
voters. Yet the poll-lists in this district show 
that 245 votes were cast at this election ! * * * 

By a comparison of the census-roll with the 
4* 



82 KANSAS. 

poll-books it appears that but seven resident 
settlers voted ; and 238 votes were illegally 
and fraudulently given !" 

And what was done at the election of a 
delegate to Congress was repeated at the elec- 
tion of the members of the Legislative Assembly. 
By the report of the Committee of Investiga- 
tion it appears that the proportion of illegal to 
legal votes was as 4,908 to 1,410 ! From the 
census it appears there v^ere but 2,905 voters 
in the whole Territory, yet 5,427 votes were 
recorded on the Pro-slavery side alone ! Many 
of the Missourians returned the same night, 
after giving their vote, to their own State. At 
Leavenworth, a great number came down by 
steamboat from Weston, and having effected 
their object, returned by the same boat. Many 
affirmed their right to vote as residents, although 
they might have been only an hour in the terri- 
tory, and had their home in Missouri. The 
enormities committed by these armed bands 
were fearful. Some we read of standing around 
the polling-place and saying that *' no difficulty 
would be made if they were allowed to vote in 
peace, but that they were determined to vote 



THE POLLS CARRIED BY KNIFE AND PISTOL. 83 

anyhow, and that each one of them was pre- 
pared for eight rounds without loading, and 
would go to the ninth round with the butcher- 
knife." If the judges who presided over the 
elections refused to receive their votes without 
administering the oath of residence, theMissou- 
rian invaders held their pistols at their heads, 
while they appointed fresh judges from their 
own number, and proceeded with the election, 
*' masters of the position." So violent was 
their hatred to the oath, that any voter who 
professed himself ready to take it was threat- 
ened with instant death, amid cries of " Shoot 
him!" <'Ciit his guts out!" &c. "One of 
them," we read in the report of the commis- 
sioners, 

"Mr. J. N. Mace, was asked if he would take 
the oath ; and, upon his replying that he would 
if the judges required it, he was dragged through 
the crowd away from the polls amidst cries of 

* Kill the nigger thief,' < Cut his throat,' 

* Tear his heart out,' ^c. After they got him 
to the outside of the crowd, they stood around 
him with cocked revolvers and drawn bowie- 
knives ; one man putting a knife to his breast 
&Q that it touched him ; another holding a cocked 



84 KANSAS. 

pistol to bis ear, while another struck at him 
with a club." 

The whole of the voluminous evidence accom- 
panying the report submitted to Congress goes 
to establish a succession of similar enormities 
in each of the polling districts. These investi- 
gations were being carried on within two doors 
of the place where I was myself staying when 
in Leavenworth ; and it was sufficient to hear 
the manner in which the Missourians affirmed 
their right to come over from their own State 
and vote in the Territory of Kansas, and their 
determination to do so on every occasion and 
at all hazards, to understand the violence with 
which they would assert that right when con- 
fronted with their political opponents at the 
polling-places. 

Another question may be suggested on this 
topic. By wliat right do these Missourians or 
others from the neighbouring States vote in the 
Kansas elections ? 

By no right whatever except that of might. 
The Missourians have no more right to vote in 
Kansas than the voters in Middlesex have, after 
using their rightful suffrage in their own county, 



ORGANIZED INVASION. S5 

to go with their knives into Surrey and record 
their votes a second time, with a pistol at the 
liead of the election officer, in order to control 
the Surrey elections. Indeed, as the States of 
the Union are by their constitution perfectly 
independent of one another and self-governed, 
the parallel would be truer if we were to pic- 
ture an army of Frenchmen, larger in number 
than the aggregate of all our voters, who should, 
at the point of the sword, choose fur us our 
representatives, and return without exception 
as our rulers men from among themselves or 
pledged to their own political sentiments. 

So much was it an act of main force and 
illegal oppression, that among the conclusions 
which the Commissioners of Investigation re- 
port as established by the testimony adduced, 
they give the first place to the following : — 

" That each election in the Territory, held 
under the organic or alleged Territorial law, 
has been carried by organized invasion from the 
State of Missouri, by which the people of the 
, Territory have been prevented from exercising 
the rights secured to them by the organic 
law." 



86 KANSAS. 

And as being the fruit of an organized inva- 
sion they conclude, — 

" Secondly, that the alleged Territorial Leg- 
islature was an illegally constituted body, and 
had no power to pass valid laws, and their en- 
actments are therefore null and void." 

While, however, in the first instances, the 
interference of the Missourians was wholly il- 
legal, the Legislature thus illegally constituted 
took care to legalize the act for the future. 
Hence we find them enacting in the "Act in- 
stituting a poll-tax :" — 

*' Sect. 1. That every free white male above 
the age of twenty-one years who shall pay to 
the proper officer in Kansas Territory the sum 
of one dollar as a poll-tax, and shall produce to 
the judges of any election within and for the 
Territory of Kansas a receipt showing the pay- 
ment of said poll-tax, shall be deemed a legal 
voter, and shall be entitled to vote at any elec- 
tion in said Territory during the year for which 
the same shall have been paid, provided that 
the right of suffrage shall be exercised only by 
citizens of the United States and those who 
have declared on oath their intention to become 
such, and shall have taken an oath to support 



PRO-SLAVERY VOTES PURCHASED BY LAW. 87 

the constitution of the United States and the 
provisions of the act organizing the Territory 
of Kansas." 

In other words, by the payment of a single 
dollar any citizen of any one of the United 
States can purchase a voting power in Kansas 
for a twelvemonth, provided he pledges himself 
to the support of the Organic Act. In contrast 
to this, in the 11th section (Statutes, p. 282) it 
is expressly enacted that while every inhabitant 
of Kansas paying a territorial tax is a qualified 
elector, yet should he, on being challenged to 
take an oath to sustain the provisions of the 
Nebraska-Kansas Bill and the Fugitive Slave 
Law, " refuse to take such oath or affirmation, 
the vote of such person shall be rejected." 

Hence, in the election of members for the 
new Legislature, the results of which we re- 
cently received, the pro-slavery Missourian who 
paid a dollar was entitled to a vote, while the 
Free-state settler in Kansas, though an owner 
of land in the Territory, was denied his right 
of suffrage by the Territorial law. The same 
law required the candidates also, in order to be 
eligible at that election, to take oath in support 



88 KANSAS. 

of the Fugitive Slave Law (Statutes, p. 332). 
The prediction, therefore, as to the results of the 
election, which was ventured when these facts 
were first laid before the English public, was 
one in relation to which no room for speculation 
could be said to exist. The complete verifica- 
tion of it in the return of a wholly pro-slavery 
Legislature, of which we have recently received 
the intelligence, was the only result which 
could reasonably be anticipated. 

At the risk of writing that which is less gener- 
ally interesting, I have presented in this and the 
preceding chapter numerous extracts from pub- 
lic documents. I have deemed it right to do 
this, because the whole value of the present 
statements rests on the authority whence they 
are derived. The references I have made are, 
firstly, to the " Statutes of the Territory of 
Kansas," issued by the legislative body, to 
which, though chosen by the inhabitants of 
another State, the Government at Washington 
gives the sanction of its approval and its mili- 
tary aid ; and, secondly, to the report and evi- 
dence of " the Special Committee appointed to 
investigate the troubles in the Territory of 



OBJECT OF THE AUTHOR. 89 

Kansas"— a report which, though dissented 
from by one member of the committee, con- 
tains testimony vvhicli can never be overthrown 
or gainsaid. 

My simple object has been to show that the 
dark deeds of which I was an eye-witness in 
Kansas, some of which I have detailed in for- 
mer chapters, are no darker than the public 
acts of the slave-power in that territory, as 
exhibited in the archives of its House of As- 
sembly ; and that the fearful anarchy and unre- 
strained lawlessness which reign throughout 
the territory find both their parallel and their 
key in the flagrant unrighteousness of their 
legal enactments. 



90 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Recapitulation. — The " bogus*' Legislature. — Men and Things 
in Kansas. — Different Classes of Settlers. — Immense Extent 
of Country. — Physical Aspect. — Rivers. — The Kansas and 
Missouri. — Undulating Prairie. — Caravans. — Indian Tribes. 
—Fertility of the Soil.— Salubrity of the Climate.— Com- 
mercial Advantages. — The '-mad Missouri.'' — Excellent 
Market. — " Nebraska-Kansas Act." — A Race between North 
and South. — Pro-slavery Party in the Ascendant. — Struggle 
between the two Parties. — Tarring and Feathering. — Sale 
of a Free Man. — Model Legislators. — Discordant Elements. 
— Development. 

Ix my earlier chapters on the subject of Kan- 
sas, I attempted to depict some of the scenes 
of riot and exhibitions of maddened hostility 
which fell within my own experience as a 
traveller in that territory immediately after 
the burning and sack of the town of Lawrence. 
In others I have endeavoured to explain the 
extraordinary fact of such lawlessness being per- 
mitted, by showing from the statute-books of 
the territory that such acts were not the fruit 
of a sudden and exceptional outbreak of pas- 



THE *' bogus" legislature. 91 

sion, but were the reflection of the deliberate 
injustice of their legislative enactments. I 
have also indicated the fact that the Legisla- 
ture, which has thus shamefully abused its 
power, is not the choice of the people of Kan- 
sas, but mainly of the inhabitants of an adjoin- 
ing State, who controlled the elections by enter- 
ing and voting in the territory in far larger 
number than the total of its own voting popu- 
lation. Further, that this Legislature — com- 
monly called a " bogus," that is, a spurious 
Legislature — possesses the sanction of the gener- 
al Government, and the aid, consequently, of 
the United States' troops. On the same ground, 
every act of the people of Kansas to gain for 
themselves a true representation and a better 
government is regarded as " treason" or "rebel- 
lion ;" and the leaders of such " rebellion" have, 
as in the instance of General Robinson and 
others, suffered, although untried, a long and 
painful imprisonment. 

This fact of an unrepresented minority, or, 
with more truth, an unrepresented majority of 
the people of Kansas, is alone sufficient to 
shield the settlers in that territory from the 



92 KANSAS. 

charge of universally participating in this sys- 
tem of legalized ruffianism. There are, in 
truth, large numbers of people occupying 
claims in the territory, whose sole purpose 
evidently is to act as peaceful pioneers of civil- 
ization by transforming the rich prairie lands 
of Kansas into a home for themselves and their 
children. In justice to these and all others 
concerned, I purpose devoting one or two chap- 
ters to a description of men and things general- 
ly in Kansas ; comprehending, if possible, some 
description of the external aspect of the coun- 
try, its towns and cultivation, with a more 
special portraiture of the classes of men there 
to be met — the Western settler, the Free-state 
advocate, the Southern planter, the border-man, 
and all other varieties of inhabitant that consti- 
tute the existing elements of Kansas society. 
This may meet the wants of those whose inter- 
est in the political struggle, of which Kansas 
is the theatre, may lead them to inquire what 
kind of appearance the place presents, and what 
objects meet the eye of one travelling in that 
distant territory. 

And first, in addition to that which Kansas 



IMMENSE EXTENT OF COUNTRY. 93 

has of its own, those characteristics must be 
presupposed which it possesses in common 
with all the other vast territories of the Ameri- 
can " far West." There is immense extent of 
country. Add together England, Wales, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, and the aggregate superficies 
will yield almost precisely the area of Kansas ; 
which, nevertheless, is small compared with its 
sister territory, Nebraska. There is interest 
attached to its physical aspect. Rivers of im- 
mense proportions roll their vast and muddy 
volume along, ordinarily at a great depth be- 
neath the elevation of the general surface, 
through which they have cut their deep broad 
channel, leaving a margin of high bluffs, some- 
times covered with a thick growth of cotton- 
wood and elm, — at others too steep to admit of 
more than the scantiest vegetation. Near these 
rivers, and especially on the borders of the Kan- 
sas and Missouri, are fine bottom-lands covered 
with a rich and most fertile soil, needing no- 
thing but the plough to convert them into 
fruitful fields. Then follows prairie — beautiful, 
undulating prairie — here and there a grove of 
walnut, hickory, oak, or sugar-maple, but for 



94 KANSAS. 

the most part a broad treeless and shrubless 
pasturage, stretching its velvety surface of grass 
as far as the horizon, decked, too, at the spring 
season — when I saw it — with prairie flowers of 
every hue, and alive with the hum of insects 
no less variegated in colour and delicate in form. 
Let the traveller put himself upon one of the 
trails joining the caravan for Santa Fe, or 
Oregon, or Utah, and he may spend his month 
or six weeks amid the monotony of this sea of 
grass as on an ocean voyage, traversing the 
green waves of its rolling surface, with a circular 
horizon always around him, till, having crossed 
twelve and a half degrees of longitude, he finds 
himself at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and 
at length at the western boundary of Kansas. 
With the exception, however, of these trains, 
which pass and repass with their long waggons 
and innumerable oxen during the summer 
months, the broad prairie-lands of Central and 
Western Kansas are left to the occupancy of 
the wandering tribes of Indians, of whom it has 
been estimated that there are yet 25,000 in the 
territory ; while the better- watered, better- 
wooded, and more fertile lands in the East are 



ATTRACTIONS OF KANSAS. 96 

occupied by the 10,000, or more, belligerent 
settlers of our own blood, of whom w^e have 
heard so much. 

Were there nothing else to attract settlers 
but the fertility of the land, the salubrity of the 
climate, and the ccJmmercial advantages it pos- 
sesses, Kansas would still have been sought 
out as a favourable spot for Western emigrants. 
Its soil, so far as I had opportunity to observe 
it, in the lands watered by the Kansas and 
Missouri rivers, is as rich as in any part of the 
whole West of the United States, admirably 
adapted for pasturage, suitable for Indian corn 
and other crops, and, in some parts, for the cul- 
tivation of hemp or tobacco. Its climate, hot 
in summer, is nevertheless healthy, and free, 
according to all accounts, from the fever and 
ague so prevalent in many parts of Missouri. 
Its economical advantages are quite peculiar. 
It is, by virtue of its situation, the key to all 
the vast territory which, westward and north- 
ward, opens out from the junction of the Kansas 
and Missouri rivers. The Kansas itself is no 
inconsiderable stream. It receives into it the 
Smoky-hill, the Grand Saline, Solomon's, and 



96 KANSAS. 

the Republican Forks, besides smaller tribu- 
taries, each of these greater in length, and in 
the spring very much larger in volume, than 
our own Thames. The "mad" Missouri, al- 
though having more than 1,600 miles to run 
vi^hen it passes Leavenworth before it reaches 
the sea, and having already traversed 2,600 
miles since it left the Great Falls, is, for the 
whole distance, open to steam navigation; 
while above the Falls the stream may still be 
navigated by smaller craft for hundreds of 
miles towards its source in the Rocky Mount- 
ains. But, independently of this prospective 
commerce, the settler in Eastern Kansas already 
possesses the advantage of water communication 
by which at once to forward his produce to the 
southern market, and, above all, an excellent 
market at his own door in the necessities of 
produce and of stock arising from the constant 
fitting out of the trains for New Mexico, which 
make the cities on the Kansas border their 
starting-place and entrepot. 

But with much in these respects to attract 
the settler, Kansas owes, doubtless, the rapidity 
of its settlement principally to the political 



ATTRACTION'S OF KANSAS. 



97 



interests which have gathered around it. From 
the first moment when the Nebraska-Kansas 
Act was passed, which, whilst it organized 
Kansas into a Territory, swept away all former 
stipulations as to the exclusion of slavery, it 
was perceived alike by North and South that 
the future of Kansas in relation to slavery, and 
with it, probably, of all territories that might 
afterwards be admitted, must be determined by 
the numerical proportions of its population. 
A race was commenced between North and 
South, and that party was to be the winner 
who should send in the largest number of its 
own adherents, whether Free-state men or 
pro-slavery men, to determine the law for the 
new Territory. Measures were taken by the 
pro-slavery party to prevent the allotment of 
lands to any but their own partisans ; and when 
Free-state men still came in, squatter meetings 
were held in Kansas by inhabitants of Mis- 
souri, who passed resolutions to the following 
effect : 

" That we will afford protection to no aboli- 
tionist as a settler on this Territory. 

*' That we recognize the institution of slavery 



98 KANSAS. 

as already existing in this Territory, and advise 
slaveholders to introduce their property as early 
as possible." 

To meet these efforts on the part of organiza- 
tions in Missouri, Emigrant Aid societies were 
formed in Boston and elsewhere in the Eastern 
States to promote the movement on the side of 
the North, and to give facilities to settlers 
intending to make Kansas their home. That 
these were bond fide settlers, and not an invad- 
ing army of illegal voters like the Missourians, 
we have abundant proof. Indeed, it is idle to 
suppose that men went from Boston to Kansas, 
an overland journey equalling in distance that 
from London to Odessa, their expenses not 
being paid by the society, merely with a view 
to record their votes, and then return. 

The two parties, as might be anticipated, 
soon came to blows. Public meetings were 
perpetually being held, secret committees 
formed, political clubs organized. A single 
instance selected out of many will illustrate the 
operation of these hostile measures. 

A Vigilance Committee was appointed in the 
spring of 1855, having for its object " to observe 



TARRING AND FEATHERING. 99 

and report all such persons as shall, * * * by" 
the expression of abolition sentiments, produce 
disturbance to the quiet of the citizens or 
dansfer to their domestic relations ; and all such 
persons so offending shall be notified and made 
to leave the territory." On this committee 
were several members of the Legislature. The 
first person "observed and reported" by the 
committee as acting so as to endanger " their 
domestic relations" (by which delicate expres- 
sion is meant the institution of slavery) was Mr. 
William Phillips, a lawyer residing in Leaven- 
worth, whose offence was that he had sworn to 
a protest against the validity of the election in 
his district, in consequence of which protest 
Governor Reeder had ordered a new election. 
Mr. Phillips was "notified" to leave the terri- 
tory. He refused to do so, whereupon he was 
seized by a party of Missouri men to the number 
of fourteen, taken across the river, and carried 
several miles into Missouri. They then pro- 
ceeded to shave one side of his head, next 
stripped off his clothes, and put him through 
the horrible ordeal of tarring and feathering. 
This being completed, they rode him on a rail 



100 KANSAS. 

for a mile and a-lialf, and finally put him up at 
auction, a negro acting as auctioneer, and went 
through the mockery of selling him, not at the 
price of a slave, but for the sum of one dollar. 
Eight days after this outrage a public meeting 
was held, at which the following resolution 
was unanimously adopted : " That we heartily 
endorse the action of the committee of citizens 
that shaved, tarred and feathered, rode on a 
rail, and had sold by a negro, AVilliam Phillips, 
the moral perjurer." The meeting was pre- 
sided over by Mr. Rees, a member of Council 
in the Kansas Legislature, and the resolution 
was offered by Mr. Payne, a Judge and also 
member of the House of Representatives ! The 
outrage committed against Mr. Phillips was 
not, therefore, the hasty act of a few murderous 
ruffians, but one advisedly carried out and 
afterwards deliberately endorsed by a number 
of citizens and by members of both Houses of 
Legislature. Mr. Phillips returned to Leaven- 
worth, but has since, according to accounts 
received in the autumn of 1856, been shot. 

To return, however, from this digression. It 
was out of elements thus discordant that the 



DISCORDANT ELEiME.XTS. 101 

social life of Kansas had to develope itself. 
The settler from the North brought his shrewd 
intelligence and hard-working industry ; the 
man of the South his fearless spirit and cavalier 
independence. Both were animated by a de- 
termination to conquer. United they might 
have made of Kansas a garden of plenty and an 
advance-post of civilization. But their work 
in the territory w^as to oppose one another. 
And, although this might have been done by 
pacific means, yet, differing widely as they did 
in natural characteristics, in their sympathies 
and their political aims, they soon yielded to 
the influence of party bitterness, so that the 
Northern man's persevering energy and the 
Southerner's high-spirited daring found exercise, 
not in furthering a common cause, but in acts 
of mutual hostility. 



102 KANSAS. 



CHAPTEH IX. 

striking Contrast. — Freedom and Slavery. — Rapid Progress of 
Kansas.— Northern Emigrant Aid Societies.— Spirit of En- 
terprise. — The " Regulators." — " Law and Order" Men. — 
The Widow's Son.--Barbarous Outrage.— The Western 
Frontiersman. — His character. — Generous Reciprocity. — 
Mode of Intercourse.- The Pioneer of the New World. — 
His Appointments. — The Romance of Peril. — Achievements 
of the Western Pathfinder.— Contempt of the Yankees.— 
The Source of Life and Vigour.— Effect of Politics on the 
Western Character. 

Nowhere in America, probably, is the con- 
trast between the Northern and the Southern 
man exhibited in so marked a manner as in 
Kansas. He who would see the difference 
between comfort and discomfort, between 
neatness and disorder, cleanliness and filth, 
between farming the land and letting the 
land farm itself, between trade and stagnation, 
stirring activity and reigning sloth, between 
a wide-spread intelligence and an almost 
universal ignorance, between general progress 



CONTRASTS. 103 

and an incapacity for all improvement or 
advancement, has commonly only to cross 
the border-line which separates a free from 
a slave State. But he who would see these 
broad contrasts in a single view, the evi- 
dences of well-directed enterprise and intel- 
ligent energy mixed up with the ugly features 
of backgoing and barbarity, should seek out 
Kansas and make its strange varieties of in- 
habitants his study. 

Kansas is not altogether bad. It has its re- 
deeming features, its fairer as well as its darker 
aspects, asifto justify Byron's line, — "None are 
all evil." An impulse more than ordinary has 
been given on the part of the North, and the 
necessities of the settler have been more than 
ordinarily anticipated. Usually life in the bush 
or life on the prairie implies a long apprentice- 
ship of toil before the reward of industry is 
reached. The Western settler must in most 
instances make up his mind to years of lonely 
struGrc^le. hard battlinsc with the earth and ele- 
ments, before he finds himself surrounded by 
the life of civilization even in its most rudiment- 
ary forms. But it has not been wholly so in 



104 KANSAS. 

Kansas. The want of capital, which is a prin- 
cipal source of the difficulties and embarrass- 
ments that so long retard the progress of settler 
in a new countr}-, has been in a great degree 
met by the active exertions of the Northern 
emigrant-aid societies. The appliances of civil- 
ized life are, as a consequence, by no means 
wanting. The church, the school-house, the 
public hall, the necessities of commerce, saw- 
mills, and other erections of industry, are all in 
a certain degree provided ; and large public 
works and costly undertakings are promised, 
and already have an existence on paper, which 
are in advance of the wants of the place for 
many years to come. Hence, trade has been 
greatly stimulated and a degree of enterprise 
developed which, had not the pursuits of indus- 
try been diverted by the rude checks of war, 
would have made this new territory remarkable 
in the annals of successful progress and rapid 
increase. 

Unfortunately, as I had too many proofs at 
the time of my visit, the labours of the honest 
and vvell-disposed among the settlers were most 
grievously interfered with by the necessity of 



THE widow's SOxV. 105 

bearing arms and shielding themselves from 
political oppression. The farmers were neglect- 
ing their corn fields to form committees of de- 
fence. Others found themselves mercilessly- 
robbed of their produce and of their horses and 
other stock, to supply the wants of the " Regu- 
lators," who, in the name of " law and order," 
scoured the country in search of political vic- 
tims. A young man, when I was there, was 
attacked by a band of men, who demanded his 
horse. He refused. They held their pistols 
before him, and renewed the demand : " He 
must give his horse, or drop." He again assert- 
ed his right to his own. The " Regulators" 
were firm. He pleaded, if not justice, mercy — 
telling them that he was the only son of a wid- 
owed mother, and that to take his horse would 
be to rob him of his chief means of supporting, 
not himself alone, but her. The"Law-and- 
Order" men were v/eary of the discussion. A 
single shot terminated both it and the young 
man's life. 

But where these acts of violence were not 
committed, the diversion of the settlers' labour 
from the cultivation of their farms, to the organ- 



106 KANSAS. 

izing of means of defence, was sufficient to lead 
to serious apprehension as to the consequences. 
It was my intention to have referred to this be- 
fore the sad intelligence arrived that the Free- 
state inhabitants of Lawrence v/ere suffering 
from scarcity, and that the merchant in Weston 
who sold them a quantity of flour had been ar- 
rested b}^ a band of men from Platte City, with 
the renowned Stringfellow at their head, who 
denounced the flour-dealer as an Abolitionist, 
and threatened to hang him. Fortunately, the 
people of Weston, w^ho love free-trade, it ap- 
pears, if they love nothing else that is i\'ee, came 
to the rescue of their fellow-citizen, and com- 
pelled the Platte party to take their departure. 
To draw a true picture of Kansas life it is 
necessary, of course, to place in the foreground 
the true typical Western frontiersman. Coming 
originally, whether from the cultivated farms of 
New England or from the broad plantations of 
the South, the settler in the West speedily 
acquires those general characteristics which 
belong to the border, and which mark out the 
Western man as of a species distinct from either 
Northerner or Southerner. It would be diffi- 



THE WESTERN FRONTIERSMAN. 107 

cult, perhaps, to define it precisely, but there 
is an element in the Western character which, 
in the case of the majority I believe of our own 
countrymen, would gain for it their natural 
sympathies more readily than they are yielded 
to the Eastern inhabitants of the States, either 
North or South. This is the secret, probably, 
of that strange attraction which belongs, not- 
withstanding all its discomforts and all its 
perils, to the border life of the furthest West. 
Placed in circumstances where they have to 
endure frequent hardship and privation, called 
oftentimes to encounter great danger, and to 
expose their lives to the most imminent perils, 
these hardy men become in a short time wholly 
indifferent to all considerations of personal com- 
fort or safety. By a natural transition they are 
next found deriving pride and pleasure from the 
life of hardship to which they have become 
inured, despising the softness of civilization and 
conventional society, and loving only the proud 
independence and excitement of a life, in which 
the surmounting of obstacles, the subduing of 
nature and perpetual hair-breadth escapes, form 
the chief staple of each day's experience. 



lOS KANSAS. 

Further, the border-man is so situated with 
regard to his fellow settler that he is most 
naturally led to share all he has with his neigh- 
bour, and to make common stock of whatever 
little conveniences each can afford. If A is 
felling timber, he will cut for B too, who lives 
in the log-house four miles off, and who per- 
haps has unfortunately lost or broken his axe ; 
and if B's wife has got a saucepan, A's better- 
half shall not want the means wherewithal to 
prepare the " hog and hominy" for the family's 
wants. And why not ? If there were no 
such generous interchange, a weary week's 
journey might need to be undertaken before 
Mr. B could replace his axe or Mrs. A her 
saucepan. A Western man will take no re- 
compense for services rendered, however kind 
or valuable ; he dislikes to be offered thanks. 
In my own experience, the most simple ac- 
knowledgment of favour by a plain " if you 
please," or "I thank you," has been received 
with very evident displeasure that I should 
introduce the coldness of Eastern conventional- 
ism to mar the freedom of friendly intercourse. 
The most unbounded hospitality reigns, the 



OPEN HEARTS AND OPEN DOORS. 109 

talk of the stranger and the news he may 
bring being the set-oiF against all he may re- 
ceive. This set-ofF, however, he must give ; 
for tlie Western man, while he holds that you 
have a free right to everything in his cabin 
without asking so much as his permission, con- 
siders that you and yours are equally at his 
disposal, and that, should he detain you for a 
night beneath his roof, you are bound to an- 
swer every one of the endless questions he has 
to present for your solution. Whatever is not 
generous and free, the true border-man with 
difficulty comprehends and most heartily liates. 
Let the stranger leave behind him all home 
prejudices, all the chill formalities of conven- 
tional society — be ready to accept the rough 
fare set before him, which, if not good, is yet 
the best the country w^ill afford — show no fear, 
no suspicion, no restraint — handle his rifle as if 
it were his cherished companion — be hearty 
and cheerful and ready to communicate, not in 
word only, but by handing out his brandy-flask, 
or participating anything else he may have 
with his entertainers, without allowing it to 
appear in the smallest degree an act of favour, 



110 KANSAS. 

and tell the rough settler that, though " of 
Eastern raising," his heart is with the West, 
and there is not a log-cabin in the whole bor- 
der-land from north to south which is not open 
for his reception. Except in Kansas, one is 
compelled to add ; for there, although the 
Western nature is still the same — and rightly 
managed, there is little to fear even from the 
man who glories in the name of border-ruffian 
— ^yet, through this detestable war, the gener- 
osity of the Western character is marred, and 
each man looks with suspicion upon either 
stranger or neighbour. 

It is impossible, however, rightly to compre- 
hend life in Kansas without taking into consid- 
eration the natural characteristics of the West- 
ern borderer. Take him at his best, and the 
pioneer of the New World possesses a noble 
character. There he stands, in his rough 
woollen shirt of yellow or red, his big boots 
forming a large circumference around his leath 
ern hose, a buffalo-skin upon his back — at once 
his covering by day and his bed, sheet, and 
blanket all combined by night — his coonskin 
cap, or slouched felt hat, covering a face which 



THE PATHFINDERS COXQUESTS. Ill 

hot suns and keen frosts have made brown as 
an Indian's, his rifle across his shoulder, pow- 
der-horn and shot-pouch hanging from his neck, 
his belt stuck full of twine and knives, and 
hatchets and ammunition, and all the minor 
necessaries of his life — the produce of his last 
shot perhaps upon his shoulder, his visage the 
fiercer for uncombed hair and thick bristly 
beard; there he stands, ready for the widest 
river, or the thickest forest, or the broadest 
prairie, or the wildest Indian, or the most savage 
beast that it may be his lot to light on, ready 
to do or die. 

That there is a charm in all this, at least to 
*' those whose hearts are fresh and simple," and 
who are sick of the luxury and display, the 
hollow pretence and unmanly refinements of 
the Eastern cities, will be understood by every 
one. There is romance about the unheeded 
perils and unthought-of hardships, there is at- 
traction in the manly generosity of these brave 
pioneers of civilization. They are the men to 
conquer the wild w^oods and stern nature that 
is before them ; and they do it. Step by step, 
not gradually, but rapidly, they have carried 



112 KANSAS. 

forward the outposts of civilized life; the red 
man has receded before them ; the waste wil- 
derness has been transformed into a fruitful 
field; hundreds, thousands of miles have sub- 
mitted to the steady march of their conquest ; 
population has followed to fill up from behind 
the lands they have cleared ; and hating, as 
" crowded up like a city," the place where 
they can see in the distance the smoke of an- 
other man's log-hut, or cross another man's 
claim, they ever move on, loving only the act 
of conquest, and the pride of giving to the 
world new lands for its enjoyment. 

Open-hearted, hospitable, manly, enterpris- 
ing, reckless of danger, careless of comfort, full 
of cool courage and determination as the West- 
ern pathfinder is, it may readily be supposed he 
holds in most hearty contempt the delicately 
raised Yankee, that is, inhabitant of the North- 
eastern States. To him the Yankee appears 
the embodiment of all that is stiff and cold, 
calculating and selfish. He w^ould not exchange 
the " rough and ready" welcome to one of his 
own Western log-huts, for all the gorgeous 
saloons and costly display of the most brilliant 



THE WESTERN PATHFINDER. 113 

receptions in the Eastern cities. And well it 
is that, in some part of the Union, the manly 
strength of its first founders is thus perpetua- 
ted. With all his faults, there is life and vigour 
in the AVestern borderer, and although capable 
of being transformed into the worst of ruffians, 
because the most reckless and determined, yet 
there are elements of character, as it has been 
my object to show, in this rough population of 
Missouri and other border lands, which are 
noble in themselves, and of the highest value 
to the interests of the States. 

How this Western character has been affect- 
ed by the strife of politics, how it has been 
engrafted upon other stocks and transmuted 
into new forms, I shall next describe. But 
this subject must be reserved for another chap- 
ter, in which I hope to pourtray more particu- 
larly the varieties of inhabitants to be met with 
in the seat of Western war and thus to place 
before English eyes a picture of log-hut life in 
Kansas. 



114 KiXNSAS. 



CHAPTER X. 

Varieties of Population in Kansas. — Types of Mankiud on 
board a Missouri Steamer. — The Border-ruffians. — Loud 
Men. — Silent Free-Soilers. — New Mexican Spaniards. — 
Nuns. — Mormons. — German Jews. — " Dutchmen." — Pro- 
fessed Gamblers. — High Stakes. — Government Officials. — 
United States Officers.— The African Race. — Freedom of 
Speech forbidden. — A curious Illustration.— Judge 'Trig- 
ger. — His Appearance — Conversation — His Legal Wisdom. 
— Lynch Law. — The Judicial Functionary's Plan. 

The population of Kansas comprehends various 
classes of inhabitants, each distinguished from 
the others by very marked characteristics. 
Leaving out of view its native Indians, the 
country cannot be rightly understood, without 
some apprehension of the varieties of human- 
kind existing among its white settlers. 

The company I had on board the steamboat 
in the ascent of the Missouri, described in an 
earlier chapter of this book, might be taken as 
representing not inadequately the various classes 
of population in Kansas. The loudest men on 



TYPES OF MAIS'KIXD. 116 

board — the rulers and men of authority by 
virtue of noise — were the Missourians and 
border-ruffians generally. Early or late, in the 
saloon or on deck, at the bar or in the berths, 
there was no release from their ceaseless clam- 
our. The rifles on the table or in the corners, 
and the pistols in their pockets, were so many 
fresh arguments to strengthen the bravado of 
their words. Xo contrary- opinion need at- 
tempt to stem the torrent of their turbulent 
bluster. Even so is it in Kansas. The loudest 
men whose authority is gained by the defiance 
they bid, revolver in hand, to all opposition, 
are the supporters of the political views of the 
South. The majority of these are natives of 
Missouri, but many whom I met had come from 
States as distant as Georgia and South Caro- 
lina, — to appearance the olY-scourings of the 
population ; young men of spirit and fire, whose 
love of a fight had tempted them to engage in 
the strife. 

Next, there were doubtless among my fellow- 
passengers silent Free-soilers — so silent as to 
kheir views that it would be impossible to 
identify them, were it not that a Northern man 



116 KANSAS. 

can scarcely conceal his more unimpassioned 
manners, his more careful attention to his dress, 
and his colder and more formal demeanour in 
general. So, also, is it in Kansas. There are 
abundant proofs of the existence of quiet and 
industrious settlers from the North, silently 
trying to live out the storm, and thus prevent 
the triumph of a mighty wrong. A consider- 
able portion of these reach Kansas, by a some- 
what tedious overland route, through the 
Northern State of Iowa, to avoid the risk of 
travelling through a Slave State. This accounts 
for the fiict that, were I to set all cool tempera- 
ments and men silent on slavery to the credit 
of the Free-soilers, that party would still have 
been very poorly represented among my fel- 
low passengers. 

Further, there were on board Spaniards be- 
longing to New Mexico, filthy as to their persons, 
disgusting in their manners. These, also, form 
a part of the transient population of Kansas. 
Moreover, there were several nuns going up to 
one of the Koman Catholic missions, and some 
adherents of the Mormon faith, making their 
way, probably, across the plains to Utah. Be- 



TYPES OF MANKIND. 117 

sides these were Jews, for the most part of 
German origin, of whom a large class carry on 
the trading and storekeeping in the towns of 
Kansas. There were Germans also — called by 
the Americans " Dutchmen" — who, intent on 
making a livelihood, have settled so thickly in 
Kansas, as they have done in all the AVestern 
lands, that there are more German than English 
names upon the shops and warehouses, and 
they almost bid fair to monopolize the com- 
merce of the country. Then there were others 
intent on making gain, but not the honest gain 
of the German — namely, the professed gam- 
blers. These were men who played a trick 
with cards, well known on the Western waters, 
which occupies but a single minute. They 
never accepted a stake of less than $100. They 
began their work late at night, and left the 
boat about daylight, carrying with them many 
hundreds of dollars which they had got from 
the drinking, maddened ruffians, fresh from the 
spoil of Lawrence. These, unfortunately, are 
too numerously represented also in the Terri- 
tory. Again, there were of our number agents 
of the Federal as well as the Territorial Govern- 



118 KANSAS. 

ment, and officers in the United States' army ; 
and, lastly, the African race was represented, 
not only by the waiters and others employed 
on the boat, but also by a poor slave, who, for 
safety's sake, was handcuffed, and sat ordinarily 
in a corner, where the black barber found for 
him a seat, dropping only his wrists between 
his knees w^hen a stranger approached, to 
hide, apparently, the shameful shackle from his 
gaze. 

But amid all these — Pro-slavery men, Free- 
soilers, New Mexicans, Mormons, Nuns, Jews, 
Germans, professional gamblers, Federal officers, 
and slaves — there was no liberty of speech, un- 
less the license claimed by the Southern braves 
be deemed a species of liberty. In an under- 
tone, and keeping to the German language, I 
ventured to condemn the existing outrages, 
while conversing with two Germans. I found 
them of my own mind, but, they added, no one 
durst open his mouth. Of tlie denial of free- 
dom of speech a curious illustration occurred 
as our steamer was approaching the border-line 
of Kansas. The word " abolition" had unguard- 
edly dropped from the lips of the clerk of the 



FREEDOM OF SPEECH FORBIDDETT. 119 

boat, not with the customary oath, but with a 
laugh. "Shut up," was the instant rejoinder, 
proceeding from a gruff, hoarse voice, " reck'n 
we're in a section now, where you can't say 
that there word, not even in jest, so don't 
crowd on so mighty powerful. You'll have to 
allow to respect the wishes of the sovereign 
people; it's them that's to rule; — d'ye hear, 
Mister?" 

Another fellow-passenger held the same views. 
He was a Judge, and resident in Missouri. I 
forget his name, but it might have been O'Trig- 
ger. Judge O'Trigger vw^s one of the best- 
looking of the Missouri men. He was evident- 
ly well to do, and had the respect of the others, 
forming often the centre of a circle before 
whom he would deliver his opinions. He was 
a man of fine frame and handsome appearance 
— tall, but also stout ; his eye betokened deter- 
mination, and his countenance was not unat- 
tractive, albeit his cheek was unceasingly, 
except at mealtime, distended with the tobacco 
quid. He was well dressed, wore a "Know- 
Nothing" hat, and had a black coat on his 
back, which, however, he removed when he sat 



120 KANSAS. 

down to meals, thus making more conspicuous 
his tobacco-stained shirt-front. This worthy- 
judge was a leader of the talk on board, and I 
believe I owe much of my personal safety to 
the fact of my not refusing to form one of his 
circle of auditors. But let Sir Oracle speak for 
himself. 

"I've got some boys* up hyar, and I expect 
I'll bring them down. Reckon property's a 
'nation sight safer at home than among those 
mean, cantankerous Abolition cusses. That's 
what I'm goin' up for, gentlemen. Got a 
steep lot, I reckon, altogether; but they're no 
account in these hyar diggins now, with them 
Abolition rascals; that's a fact." Next, dis- 
coursing on the agitating politics of the day, 
the subject to which he always reverted, *' Tall 
times these, gentlemen. Those Massachusetts 
men calculated they'd have it all their own 

way, I reckon. Get us only on their 

tracks. We'll soon knock the wind out of 



* By " boys " ia the Southern States are meant negroes. 
The appellation, however, has no reference to age. "Old 
man" is another frequent form of address, in speaking to 
negro slaves. 



JUDGE o'tRIGGER. 121 

them, that's sartin. What on airth have they 
to do hyar, I should like to know ? Let Massa- 
chusetts govern itself, I say ; and ?^e'll govern 
owrselves. That's so. Let Massachusetts gov- 
ern itself, and ive^W govern o^^rselves, I say. 
That's right and fair ; and they've no right to 
interfere." All joined heartily in admiring the 
legal wisdom of Judge O'Trigger, interpreting 
his conclusion as it was meant, — namely, that 
Missouri should govern Kansas. Then, in 
order to prevent the intrusion of Massachusetts 
men, he had his remedy at hand. "We're not 
agoin' to let them pass in, no how. There's 
too many in it, by a long sight, a'ready. We're 
most agen the border now, I reckon. Catch 

e'er a one of them passing ; by , if I won't 

scalp him. There's one thing we'll do. We'll 
pass the word round the boat at the last land- 
ing, so as they can jest kinder have their choice 
which way they like. They must just be good 
on the hemp or land. That's how we'll crowed 
it on 'em, or they'll have to allow to take the 
change out of this hyar revolver of mine. That's 
so; they must just be right on the hemp or 
put ashore. We've stood them a mighty steep 



122 KANSAS. 

time, but they ain't agoin' to carry on that 
powerful any longer. That's a fact." The 
judicial functionary repeated many times his 
plan, whereby to separate the wheat from the 
chaff among the passengers ; but, fortunately, 
when we reached the boundary line the excite- 
ment was too great to admit of its execution. 
Most probably the whole of it was mere bra- 
vado. 



THE TWO RIVAI, ARMIES. 123 



CHAPTER XI. 

Two great Divisions. — Pro-slavery Mea and Free-soilers. — 
Subdivisions. — Slaves. — Small Number of Slave-owners in 
Kansas. — Their "Works. — " Border-ruffians." — King of the 
Fire-eaters. — Their Numbers. — Volunteer Companies. — An 
American " Groggery." — A Border-ruffian's Boast. — A fair 
" Border-ruffian." — The Free-state Party. — General Lane. — 
Governor Robinson. — His Services. — Enormities of Naples 
and Austria reproduced in America. — Relative Numbers in 
Kansas of Southerns and Northerns. — Migration. — Per- 
manent Settlers. — Floating Population. — Western Cities. — 
Contrast between Free and Slave Towns. 

The two great divisions in the population of 
Kansas are, of course, the pro-slavery men and 
the free-soilers. These are the two rival armies 
which, having poured during the past two years 
into the territory, form the bulk of its inhab- 
itants, and now stand side by side contending 
for the mastery of power in the future State. 
These parties are susceptible also of a sub-divis- 
ion, according as their purposes in entering the 
territory are peaceable or warlike. A most not- 
able distinction is that which separates the man 



124 KANSAS. 

who, whatever be the policy he has espoused, 
seeks to cany the day by his right of suffrage as 
a permanent honest settler, and the lover of dis- 
turbance who comes to assert victory at the 
expense of falsehood, treachery, robbery, and 
bloodshed. Judge O'Trigger, who had "got 
some boys up to Kansas," and who spared exe- 
cuting his threat against those who would not 
w^earthe pro-slavery badge, — namely, a bunch 
of hemp, symbolic of a rope, stuck into the 
buttonhole — is, thus far, greatly more to be 
respected than the Northern man who, in the 
pursuit of his cause, should turn his Yankee 
acuteness to dishonest account. 

There are, therefore, honajide settlers among 
the pro-slavery men. Judging by the number of 
slaves, which, according to the census of 1855, 
was 192, and has not, probably, increased since 
that time, those who have brought their " live 
stock" with them, in order to cultivate the 
soil, are not many. A single Southern planter 
will often own four or five times the whole 
number of slaves existing in Kansas. But in 
the Western States the ownership is generally 
limited. Supposing, therefore, the average of 



PRO-SLAVERY SETTLERS. 125 

"hands" owned by one master in Kansas to be 
as small as four, which my own observation 
would lead me to think a sufficiently low esti- 
mate, we still have fewer than fifty as the total 
number of slave-owning settlers in Kansas. It 
is singular that for the sake of fifty men, to pro- 
tect them in their "right" to hold property in 
slaves, so many other rights have been trampled 
under foot, and thousands of honest men inter- 
dicted in the peaceful possession of their lands 
and the legal exercise of their political suffrages. 
There are, as may be supposed, many besides, 
who, although not owning slaves, are yet right- 
ful pro-slavery settlers. Still, if we are to 
estimate their number by the evidences of 
their industry, and ask what cities have they 
built, what buildings have they erected, what 
lauds have they brought under culture, what 
commerce have they introduced, where are 
their farm-houses in the country, and their 
stores, and warehouses, and schools, and 
churches in the towns, we should come to 
the conclusion that if they are as numerous as 
they profess to be, their powers are so absorbed 
by their much talking that they are unable to 



126 KANSAS. 

exhibit any proportionate fruit of the labour 
of their hands. 

Of the pro-slavery men who are not perma- 
nent settlers, little need be said. These are the 
" border-ruffians," who have figured so much and 
so ill in the short history of Kansas. Their 
acts sufficiently indicate their character. Bold, 
reckless men, intent upon one object, and that 
the extermination of every Free-soiler from the 
territory, utterly unscrupulous as to the means 
by which their object shall be attained, they 
are to be seen and heard on every side — now 
standing in knots at the street corners, or in 
the bar-rooms, concocting their schemes of 
strife; now as marauding "posses," armed to 
the teeth, galloping across the country, ready 
to waylay and hang on the nearest tree any 
one they may meet who will not join their 
faction ; again, in large numbers assembling in 
some "grocery," surrounded by whisky and 
rum barrels, or in the open air, addressed by 
some one of their leading men, some king of 
the " Fire-eaters," who makes them swear to 
follow him till the last drop of Abolition blood 
is shed ; or, led on in troops by such masters 



BORDER-RUFFIAN POPULATION. 127 

in infamy as Donaldson, Marshal of the United 
States, or Jones, the Sheriff of Douglas County, 
or David R. Atchison, who left his seat at 
Washington as President of the United States' 
Senate to engage in this unjust war, and under 
their generalship planting their cannon before 
the Free-state buildings in Lawrence, and 
reducing them to ashes, notwithstanding the 
unresisting surrender of the inhabitants. 

It is of necessity impossible to estimate the 
number of this border-ruffian population, as the 
number itself varies with the political occasions 
which call them out. In a single day of elec- 
tion, their number has been increased some- 
times by the advent of at least 3,000, who have 
crossed the border in order to control the 
elections. Many hundreds are at all times 
organized into volunteer companies, bearing 
such titles as " Kickapoo Rangers," "Platte 
County Rifles," "Shot-gun Militia." In a 
circular issued by one of the Missouri societies 
a few weeks before my visit, the system is open- 
ly confessed, while they appeal for help to 
sustain more vigorously this organized border- 
ruffianism : — 



128 KANSAS. 

*' The western counties of Missouri have, for 
the last two years, been heavily taxed, both m 
money and time, in fighting the battles of the 
South. Lafayette county alone has expended 
more than $100,000 in money, and as much 
and more in time. Up to this time the border 
counties of Missouri have upheld and main- 
tained the rights and interests of the South 
in this struggle, unassisted, and not unsuccess- 
fully." 

Not quite unassisted, either ; for when I was 
in South Carolina, not long before, immense 
meetings were being held and large sums sub- 
scribed, in order, although far more than 1,000 
miles removed, to express active sympathy with 
those who were fighting the pro-slavery battles 
in Kausas. 

As these border-ruffians form a fluctuating 
population, so their mode of life and place of 
habitation are not those of permanent settlers. 
They collect mostly about the large hotels and 
groceries (which is the American emendation 
of the word "groggery") and bar-rooms and 
gambling-houses, where they remain " loafing 
about," as an American would term it, during 
the day, and at night throw themselves on the 



ROxMANCE OP RUFFIANISM. 129 

floor, if beds be scarce, their revolvers at their 
side, and thus, a dozen in a row, prepare them- 
selves for next day's action. 

The name border-ruffian is one they glory in. 
" I am a border-ruffian, I am ; none of your 
city-raised Down-easters. I can draw my 
bead at forty rod, and bound to shoot centre, 
anyhow. If the crowd wish, I don't care if we 
have a hand-fight before this here bar. I'm 
dreadful easy to whip ; yes, sir-ee, dreadful 
easy. So jest jump me up, stranger, and we'll 
smash in all-createdly." This, stripped of its 
many oaths, is a specimen of the ordinary way 
in which a border-man introduces himself. I 
have seen instances in which the name of 
" border-ruffian" has been given to a steamboat, 
or to a favourite horse or dog, or as a sign for a 
grocery. A peculiar style of hat enjoys the 
same very popular appellation. And the story 
is told — I know not with what truth — of one 
of the Missouri fair at a Kansas ball declining 
the hand of a Free-soiler on the ground that 
" she was a border-ruffian, and could not be 
seen dancing with an Abolitionist." There is 
romance, therefore, even in ruffianism. 



130 KANSAS. 

Quitting, however, the chivalry of the South, 
the Free-state party claim notice. There are 
among these, as in the Southern party, the 
noisy as well as the quiet — those that take 
pleasure in political strife as well as those 
whose object is honest, peaceful settling. On 
the side of freedom there has been a needless 
amount of speech-making, and committee- 
forming, and resolution-passing, and pen-and- 
ink indignation, as well as more active efforts 
in the way of fortifying and trenching their 
stronghold, Lawrence, and organizing into vol- 
unteer armed corps. There has also been scrip 
issued and credit taken on the strength of the 
hoped-for Free-state of Kansas. But, injudicious 
as many of the acts of the Free-soil party may 
have been, they are at least free from the graver 
charge of unrestrained violence and lawlessness, 
of which the Southern party have given so 
many grievous exhibitions. 

In General Lane the adherents of the Free- 
state cause have as a leader a man of spirit and 
determination, not numbering more than thirty- 
four years, but who, ten years ago, won laurels 
in the war with Mexico, and has since distin- 



GOVERNOR Robinson's services. 131 

guished himself in apolitical career as Lieuten- 
ant-Governor of his native State, Indiana, and 
latterly as a member of Congress. The fiery 
energy of Lane is counterbalanced by the cooler 
temperament of the other most noted leader of 
the Free-state forces, as well as Governor 
under the Free-state constitution. General Rob- 
inson. Robinson is by some years Lane's senior, 
but is probably not more than forty years old, 
although liis careworn looks might betoken a 
greater age. By profession he is a physician. 
He, too, has seen rough service in the field, can 
tell of hair-breadth escapes, and has had some 
experience in politics in the Legislature of 
California. He was returned to the Californian 
Legislature, from the district of Sacramento, 
whilst yet a prisoner on account of the part he 
took in the disturbances which occurred there 
in 1S50, and in which he espoused the cause of 
the squatters. He was at the same time 
wounded, to all appearance mortally. He 
recovered, however, from his wounds, was 
acquitted from the charges of murder and con- 
spiracy, under which he was arraigned, and 
took his seat in the State Legislature. During 



IIS'J KANSAS. 

the same year he was wrecked on his passage 
to New York by way of Panama.* Governor 
Kobinson's chief value as a leader consists 
in those qualities of caution, foresight and judg- 
ment, which, added to determined energy, 
make a man wise to deliberate and bold to 
act. These rare qualities he has combined in 
a remarkable manner. As a man of cool, de- 
liberate action and never-failing resoluteness 



* A few days after the above references to Dr. Robinson's 
eventful experiences in California were written, our public 
journals contained an account extracted from El A^icaragiiense, 
of the execution of Lieutenant Jennings Estelle in the city of 
Granada, for the murder of his fellow- officer, Lieutenant 
Charles Gordon. As the name of Charles Robinson occurs in 
the declarations committed to writing by Estelle shortly before 
his execution, it may be interesting to extract a few lines of 
the confession, as little doubt can exist that the " Charles Rob- 
inson" referred to is the later Governor Robinson of Kansas. 
The following are Estelle's words : — 

"I was born in Marshall, Tennessee, in the year 1833, and 
was raised from my infancy in Hinds County, Mississippi. I 
started to California in 1852. On the road I had a difficulty 
with a man of the name of Howard, and shot him. I after- 
wards shot a man of the name of Hays, but the wound did not 
happen to prove fatal. In the same year I had a difficulty 
with Charles Robinson, and stabbed him in three places. My 
last two difficulties, while in California, occurred at the State 
Prison, where I had been employed for the last two years. 
After getting in the last scrape, I came to Nicaragua, and shot 
Thomas Edwards. I afterwards shot Charles Gordon." 



FREE-STATE POPULATION. 133 

of character, Governor Robinson has been in- 
valuable to his cause, and has won the admi- 
ration of the 02:)posite party. To such an extent 
has the value of his services unfortunately been 
recognized, that the party in power thought it 
expedient to place their hands upon him and 
detain him all the summer months of 1S5G as 
a prisoner, although untried and uncondemned. 
The enormities of Naples and Austria are 
reproduced in the United States of America. 

In point of number the Free-state cause is 
more largely represented in Kansas, I have 
good ground for concluding, that the cause of 
the South. In the election with a view to a 
State constitution which took phice on October 
9, 1855, 2,710 Free-state men voted. In the 
election of the Free-state candidate, Ex-Gov- 
ernor Reeder, as a delegate to Congress, 2,849 
votes were cast. Allowing for an increase of 
population during the succeeding year, and 
making the necessary addition for the wives 
and families of the voters, I have no doubt that 
these figures will give a tolerably near approxi- 
mation to the Free-soil population of Kansas. 
That a Northern should flow in more readily 



134 KANSAS. 

and more numerously than a Southern popula- 
tion is what might naturally be anticipated. 
To the Northern man it is a small matter to 
migrate towards the West in search of broader 
lands and richer harvests. To the Southern 
planter it involves the removal of his stock of 
slaves and the introduction of a system most 
ill-adapted to the necessities of first settlement. 
As a practical result, we have but to cast our 
eye over the Western States and territories be- 
longing to the North of the Union, and w^e see 
a constant stream of immigration, so that fifty 
waggons will sometimes be ferried across the 
Mississippi in a single day, conveying in motley 
grouping the earthly all of Eastern families 
who have traversed probably a thousand or fif- 
teen hundred miles to seek a new home in the 
West. It is estimated, indeed, that in the 
Northern States there is an annual westward 
flow of between 200,000 and 300,000 souls. In 
the South, on the other hand, the Western 
migration advances with the slow steps which 
attend the removal of a cumbersome machinery. 
While, however, the Northern man has the 
advantage in the facility of transit, and in that 



FRUITS OF NORTHERN ENTERPRISE. 135 

instinct which impels the true Northerner, if he 
do not succeed in one place, to seek better for- 
tune in another, the inhabitant of the South, 
and especially of the State of Missouri, has a com- 
pensation in the nearness of Kansas to his own 
home, and the consequent ease with which he 
can remove thither. We should anticipate, as 
a result, that the Free States of the North 
should give Kansas the larger number of its 
permanent settlers, who have not journe3^ed 
500, or 1,000, or 1,500 miles, simply to retrace 
their steps ; and that the Southern Slave States 
would furnish the majority, if not the w^hole, 
of its merely fluctuating and non-resident popu- 
lation. And so it is. Of its peaceable, indus- 
trious, order-loving population, nearly all are 
true to the cause of liberty. This was not 
only my own conclusion after coming in contact 
with the settlers very generally, but was con- 
firmed to me by the observation of one whose 
opinion is entitled to the highest respect, and 
whose official position must have enabled him 
to form a very sound judgment upon the sub- 
ject. This gentleman stated to me without 
any hesitation, that "were the will of the ma- 



136 KANSAS. 

jority of the Kansas settlers to determine, as 
the Organic Act prescribes, the territory's ad- 
mission as a Free or Slave State, the question 
would, beyond a doubt, be decided in favour of 
freedom." My informant added the mournful 
remark, tliat he saw no near prospect of such a 
result, however much it was the will of the 
majority of those who had a right to will in 
the matter. 

What the Free-state men have done in Kan- 
sas may be seen by a glance at their well-or- 
dered " claims," or at Lawrence, Topeka, Paw- 
nee, Osawatomie, Tecumseh, Council City, and 
the other places to which they have given an 
existence and a name. Lawrence is dignified 
with the name of city, and with its earth-works 
and circular forts intended to ward off a Pro- 
slavery attack, and its broad " Massachu- 
setts street" occupied by stores and offices 
of greater and less architectural pretence, it 
is, for a Far- Western town, no inconsiderable 
place. The new Free-state Hotel, which was 
battered down with tjie aid of United States' 
cannon, was a substantial building of three 
stories, by fiiv the finest as well as largest 



FRUITS OF NORTHERN ENTERPRISE. 137 

house in the whole territory. For the rest, 
Western cities must not be judged by European 
rules. They are always more remarkable on 
paper than in reality ; and, whatever they can 
show in existence, they have much more in 
prospect. Still, the Free-State settlers in 
Kansas have, by the introduction of capital, 
given a more than usual impulse to settlement 
in that territory, and the steam saw-mill, 
the school-house, and the church attest the 
enterprise and the intelligence with which 
they have commenced their labours. Con- 
trasting the towns built by the Free-state 
population with Leavenworth or other places 
where the majority are from the South, one 
remarks in the former a greater number of 
mechanics, shopkeepers, useful artisans, flirm- 
ers, and rough labourers ; and in the latter an 
excess of lawyers, doctors, land-speculators, 
rum-sellers, and bar-keepers. 

-Leavenworth City, and the manner of life in 
Kansas, both in town and country, I must 
reseiTe for another chapter. 



138 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Subject of the following Cbaptera. — Leavenworth City. — Fai 
Western Life. — Its accidental Features.*— Fort Leavenworth. 
—Appearance of the City.— Buildings.— Plan of the City. — 
Remains of the primeval Forest. — Situation of the Houses. 
— Laying out a City.— Most desirable Locations. — Increased 
Value of Property.— Rapid Rise of a City.— Substantial 
Buildings.— Wooden Shanties. 

In the following chapters I propose concluding 
my description of life in Kansas by drawing in 
outline a portraiture of Leavenworth City, as 
the most populous and important place the 
Southern men have had any hand in building ; 
and by glancing, in illustration of life in the 
country, at the system pursued of entering, 
claiming, clearing, log-hut erecting, and gener- 
ally improving the land. 

While, however, Leavenworth is the best 
example of what a Southern population has 
done in Kansas, I must in justice premise that 
any rudeness which may be discovered in it 
must not be wholly attributed to Southern 



LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 139 

barbarity, but belongs rather to the essence of 
Far Western life. I only describe Leaven- 
worth and the external appearance of Kansas 
Territory generally, with a view to enable 
those who are interested in the great struggle 
now taking place on that soil, to bring before 
their minds more vividly and truly the scenes 
and localities in the midst of which these im- 
portant political events are occurring. I have 
withheld in these pages a description of much 
that is rough and uncivilized, lest a false argu- 
ment should thence be constructed. There 
are many discomforts and many dangers on the 
border land which it were very unfair to asso- 
ciate with the perils arising from the revolvers 
of the " Regulators." In ascending the Mis- 
souri, for example, the steamboat was twice 
during the passage discovered to be on fire at 
a tender point near the furnaces ; five or six 
times, also, it ran upon sandbanks, and had to 
be lifted off by a curious machinery of spars 
and derricks, by means of which the vessel is 
raised and made to walk over the bank, like 
some long-legged leviathan. Yet, in narrating 
the events which occurred on board, I felt 



140 KANSAS. 

bound to omit all notice of such accidental 
circumstances, lest they should unfairly be put 
to the charge of the border-ruffian company 
which it was my particular object to describe. 
They have enough that is bad to bear on their 
own account, without being made responsible 
for those other irregularities which universally, 
and as if by nature, characterize the rude life of 
the border. 

" The finest city on the Missouri, heaps of 
stone buildings — quite a place," was the de- 
scription given me of Leavenworth, shortly 
before reaching it, by my friendly adviser, the 
Indian trader of Easton. Too flattering an 
expectation only led to disappointment when I 
was put ashore among the rough log tenements 
which constitute the most prominent features 
of this embryo city. Three or four miles above, 
stands Fort Leavenworth, the chief garrison in 
the Territory, and the entrepot for the supply 
of the forts beyond, as well as the place of 
departure for the Government trains. It stands 
upon a boldly-projecting bluff, far elevated 
above the Missouri, which rolls turbulently past 
its base, and, commanding a widely extending 



LEAVENWORTH CITY. 141 

view of the broad prairie ground towards the 
west, its white walls and well-known flagstaiF 
form a most welcome signal of approaching 
home to the traveller returning from the 
plains. 

A spot where the banks of the Missouri ard 
less elevated and abrupt has been wisely chosen 
for the Site of the city of Leavenworth. Land- 
ing from the river, there is first a broad levee of 
about half a mile, with a frontage of stores and 
warehouses full of bustle and activity. The 
levee is the natural river bank, in the wet season 
muddy, in the dry season parched and dusty, 
against the steep acclivity of which the steam- 
boat is thrust to discharge itself of its freight 
and passengers. The quay is broad, being 
designed to receive all the business of the place 
and of the country behind, which receives its 
supplies through Leavenworth. At the time 
of my visit, goods of every kind lay in piles 
upon the quay, while the road was further 
blocked up with long waggons, each with six 
or more yoke of oxen, preparing to cross the 
plains. The stores fronting the levee presented 
an irregular line of erections, for the most part 



143 KANSAS. 

built of wood ; some of one story, some of two, 
but in all cases covered almost from top to bot- 
tom with signboards, inscribed in characters 
more remarkable for size than beauty. Passing 
back from the front street, other streets paral- 
lel and rectangular are reached, very regular as 
to their latitude and longitude, but very irregu- 
lar in their grading. The city spreads over, in 
fact, an irregular space of about a square mile, 
the surface of the ground being exceedingly 
uneven, and occupied with buildings before it 
has received the needed levelling. 

As in most Far Western towns, the houses 
are scattered over the place in detached erec- 
tions at considerable intervals, with out-houses, 
commonly at a distance behind each. Could 
the plan of the city be carried in mental vision, 
the houses would be found to be very regularly 
built upon broad avenues, which, upon paper, 
make Leavenworth an imposing city. But as 
the trees of the primeval forest are not wholly 
removed, and their stumps continue to inter- 
rupt the intended thoroughfares, it is impossible 
at times to keep to the authorized avenue or 
street. The old pathway through the wood is 



CITY AND FOREST. 143 

still most naturally followed, and, with nothing 
to prevent the most direct route being taken, 
the pedestrian finds himself following a track 
which conducts him now along the line of a 
future avenue, now diagonally intersecting it, 
again branching off through a projected '* im 
provement," and then crossing what is one day 
probably to be a garden, between some log-hut 
and its yet humbler out-house. 

The houses are widely scattered over the 
ground, according to a custom in all Western 
towns, which originates, doubtless, in the high 
price charged for land. As soon as a spot is 
recognized as a site of future greatness, the 
land, which has been sold probably before for 
one or two dollars per acre, rises, it may be, to 
50 or 100 dollars. Land surveyors draw elabo- 
rate plans. Streets are laid off, as rectangular 
and equidistant as geometer could desire. 
Broadway and Washington, Jefferson and Madi- 
son Avenues immediately take up the lati- 
tudes ; First, Second, Third, and Fourth Streets 
are assigned the longitudes. As yet, probably, 
not a tree has fallen before the axe. Town lots, 
however, are sold to persons living at a dis- 



14-4 KANSAS. 

tarice. Lawyers help the surveyors, and sur- 
veyors help the lawyers, while both together 
help the speculators. ''Most desirable loca- 
tions" meet speedy purchasers, who judge of 
the value of their purchases from the map. 
The few first settlers enter on their claims. 
" Improvements" begin ; the trees fall ; the 
prices rise ; the speculators, the surveyors, and 
the lawyers have all got well paid, and, in the 
following year, by a process of which we might 
question the straightforwardness, a whole city 
has come into being, and all the representations 
and promises of the map, so false in themselves, 
have become actually realized. The conse- 
quence is that, in the city which, a twelve- 
month before, was occupied only by the 
Indian's wigwam, property has already ac- 
quired a high value, and every one is profiting 
by a rising market. If the game is played 
too hard by tiie speculators, a reaction will 
sometimes ensue, and the settler sufiTers a 
loss. But ordinarily he is no exception to 
the general gain ; for, although all the profits 
realized are at his expense, the value of land 
thus entered upon and constituted into a little 



HOW WESTERN CITIES ARE BUILT. 145 

centre of commerce is sufficiently great to 
leave him in j)ossession of a profitable invest- 
ment. Singular as it may appear to us, this is 
the history of nearly all the towns and villages 
which, by the hundred, rise up yearly through 
the west of America ; and the high price w^hich 
is put by anticipation upon the land is a sufficient 
reason why, in Leavenworth, as elsewhere, the 
settlers have preferred to get cheaper sites by 
spreading to a distance from the centre of busi- 
ness. 

Some few of the buildings in Leavenworth 
are substantial stone erections of fair exterior, 
and a hotel on a large scale is projected ; but 
for the most part the houses are confined to the 
wooden shanty or the plain rough log-hut. 
The latter, however, belongs more to country 
than to city life, and is only to- be seen in all 
its rude simplicity upon the " claim," where 
the settler is turning the bush into cultivated 
and productive farm land. 
7 



146 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Kansas Interiors. — The Log-hut. — Discomforts. — Wind and 
Mud. — Strange Medley. — Yarious Modes of Construction.— 
Diflerent Stages of Log-hut building. — The Wooden House 
and Shanty. — How it is built. — Tent-life. — Interior Economy. 
— " Temperance House." — The Company. — Occupations. — 
Unreasonable Demands for Accommodation. — Alligators 
turned out. — Travel teaches Contentment. — Disallowed at 
Night, but enforced by Day. — Conveniences of the Toilet.— 
Meals. — Pride of the Host.— Rapid Eating. — Population of 
Leavenworth. — Commerce of the Plains. — Value of Stock. — 
Caravan Trains. 

A DESCRIPTION of the home-life of Kansas 
must commence with the log-hut as the most 
elementary form of dwelling. 

The external form of the log-hut is probably 
familiar to most readers. But it would be dif- 
ficult to convey to those accustomed to the 
homes of England an idea of the dirt, discom- 
fort, and misery which often reign within. In 
justice I must add that I have seen remarkable 
exceptions to this — especially in the backwoods 
of Canada and of the North Western States of 



THE LOG-CABIN. 147 

the Union. The Western border-man, how- 
ever, loves his rude cabin with all its apparent 
discomforts. The wind which enters in gusts 
through the broad gaping chinks betwixt log 
and log is to him an agreeable ventilation ; 
wanting this, the place would feel close and 
remind him of the pitiable habitations of " city- 
raised Down-Easters." The filth upon the 
floor, the smoke which fills the air, the blend- 
ing of diverse odours arising from the cooking 
of hog-flesh over the fire and the presence of 
the living hog-flesh in the room, the interming- 
ling of pig and poultry, parent and child, within 
the same few yards square, the strange decking 
of sides and roof with household stores and 
buflalo-skins, rifles, hatchets and powder-horns, 
all these things seem to be elements of charmed 
life to the true-born Western man. 

There are stages of progress, too, in log-hut 
building. The most elementary is that in which 
the logs are piled one above another in a single 
square^ notched and saddled so as to fit into one 
another angularly at about a foot short of the 
extremity of each log, and thus to form a stout 
framework, sawn through at the place where 



148 KANSAS. 

the door is intended, and the whole capped by 
a roofing of timber covered with broad flat 
pieces of wood, called " shakes." If the settler 
desires to have his cabin plastered, he uses mud. 
Within, for furniture, he contents himself with 
a few tree-stumps, nicely trimmed, for seats, 
and a shelf or two, to do service in place of 
bedsteads. In dry weather the cooking is most 
conveniently managed outside the dwelling. 
This is the first stage of log-hut building. The 
second is marked by the introduction of the 
chimney. This is commonly built outside the 
house, as an adjunct ; or rather, one might say, 
the house seems to be built against the chimney, 
so speedily has that which is but a novel inven- 
tion come to be regarded, if one may judge from 
its size and prominence, as the most important 
feature. The third stage — if one may pass 
over the introduction of a second floor, reached 
by a rough ladder of home manufacture — is 
that in which further accommodation is sought 
laterally. This is accomplished by building a 
second square hut at, probably, twelve feet dis- 
tance from the first and carrying the roof across 
the intervening space, so that a single house is 



KANSAS HOMES. 149 

formed, consisting of rooms right and left, and 
an open reception-room in the centre, where 
meals can be taken if desired, free to the air at 
its two sides, but shielded above by the roof 
covering. This is the highest style of log-house, 
and one much in favour in some parts of the 
Far West. 

For the city life of Leavenworth, however, 
tlie log-hut is naturally discarded for the more 
polished shanty, or the yet larger wooden house. 
Sawn timber costs less in many parts of Kansas 
than the rough log, the groves and forests being 
far from plentiful, even in the east of the terri- 
tory. A frame is run up and the planks nailed 
together, much as in any other place, under- 
standing always that the rough settler is not 
particular about the right relation of the door 
to the doorway, or the nice fitting together of 
the plank sides, or the general finish and archi- 
tectural correctness of either exterior or interior. 
That, when built, it is next furnished can 
scarcely be said of one of these Western houses. 
The settler commonly arrives at the place of 
his choice, strikes his tent, deposits his house- 
hold furnishings and implements of husbandry 



150 KANSAS. 

and war, and it then remains to build his house 
around his furniture rather than to introduce 
his furniture into his house. I have seen many 
instances in which a family has been living 
half within and half without their house, their 
domestic arrangements being in a state of 
incompleteness. On the very outskirts, too, 
of Leavenworth, I have remarked families 
living, Indian-like, beneath a rude covering 
of branches and mud, or under a simple awning 
stretched across a pole, amid the thick brush- 
wood which skirts the steep banks of the Mis- 
souri. In the city itself, however, there are 
many houses of two stories, and comparative 
comfort, such as would be called in the vernac- 
ular of the West "mighty fine," "elegant," 
"right smart," "all-fired grand and Down-East 
like." 

As an illustration of the interior economy 
of one of these better houses, I will attempt 
a brief sketch of that which was my own home 
while in Leavenworth City. " Temperance 
House " was a newly erected, low-roofed, 
wooden building, with two rooms in front, 
and others at the rear. The name was an 



TEMPERANCE HOUSE. 151 

attraction to me, from the certainty that the 
worst of the Missourian borderers would most 
decidedly eschew a house where the bar-room 
was destitute of " liquor." I had reason to be 
satisfied with it, for the company was the 
quietest and most sober I saw in Leavenworth, 
and permitted me to stay there without the 
customary inquiry " whether I was sound on 
the goose." They were evidently for the most 
part Free-state men, although in their constant 
political discussions none ventured to make the 
admission. The house was approached by a 
narrow gallery, with steps at each end, always 
occupied by a row of men who sat, some on the 
gallery rail, others on chairs tilted against the 
house, others with their feet upon the rail-top. 
Their employment was to chew, to spit, to talk 
politics, and to whittle. From the gallery were 
entered the two front rooms. That on the left 
was the bar-room, with nothing stronger where- 
with to satisfy thirst than a bucket of water 
and a tin dipper, placed upon the counter ; and 
beyond it the dining-room and other apartments. 
That on the right was my own bedroom. 
There was a certain air of cleanliness and of 



152 KANSAS. 

the intention of comfort about the place which 
bespoke it the work of a Northern man. Most 
generously, too, the host granted me exclusive 
right and privilege in relation to the front 
sleeping apartment, which he " allowed to be- 
lieve was the finest room in the house." This 
concession was not made, it is true, without 
the exercise of some tact and persuasion. The 
room contained, unfortunately, two large beds. 
Mine liost *' calculated the stranger could not 
want more than one, at mosty There were 
several, he said, occupying the room at the 
time. Beds were scarce in Leavenworth. I 
had myself been offered at the two principal 
hotels nothing better than " a chance on the 
floor." My request for the whole room, with 
its accommodation for at the least four persons, 
was evidently highly unreasonable, and as unac- 
countable as it was unreasonable. I explained, 
however, that I had a singular love for privacy 
at night, albeit he would not find me unsociable 
as a guest by day. I gave him to understand, 
also, that the indulgence of my peculiarity of 
taste was the condition of my staying in his 
house, but that he would not find me indis- 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY'. 153 

posed to meet any just claim lie might have 
upon me in consequence. Mine host was con- 
quered. He engaged to do what he could to 
accommodate the occupants of the room else- 
where, with much consideration adding, " If 
any of the alligators come in, just make them 
put, Colonel." I promised, and acted upon my 
promise. 

AVhen I returned to my room at night, I had 
opportunity to examine it at leisure. Looked 
at with Eastern eyes, it was open to unfavour- 
able criticism. The apartment itself was rude 
and cheerless ; its sides of rough, unpainted 
deal were not proof against the entrance of 
draughts, and permitted communication with 
adjoining rooms by either sound or sight ; its 
floor was, of course, uncarpeted ; its two beds 
offered nothing better than shuck mattresses 
and dirty blankets ; washing-stands and looking- 
glasses were out of the question ; three or four 
chairs and a small rickety table forjned the only 
additional furniture. Nevertheless, travel in 
the West soon teaches one that, if the essentials 
are present, it is a folly to distress oneself about 
minor accessories. I was not long in discover- 



154: KANSAS. 

ing that a mattress, though made of the crack- 
ling leaves of the Indian corn, is welcome 
to weary bones, and that the draughts of ah* 
which j)assed through the open chinks were 
more than compensated by the relief they 
afforded from the suffocating heat. Locks and 
bolts had not yet been introduced for use on 
the door. The door opened upon the street, 
and in that street were collected some of the 
basest ruffians that ever disgraced humanity. 
But an adjustment of a chair against the door 
caused an alarm with every incursion, and, 
as very fortunately the most violent did not 
intrude, a discreet assertion of my prerogative 
in relation to both beds was sufficient to pre- 
serve the privacy of my room. Not so, how- 
ever, during the day ; but, knowing that to the 
Western man a refusal is an incomprehensible 
selfishness, I made, for the sake of peace and 
goodwill, a free surrender throughout the day 
of the room, with its beds, chairs, table, and 
floor, all of vi^hich were as freely used, that 
I might have the better claim for indulgence at 
night. The conveniences of the toilette were 
wanting, but, as in all Far Western places. 



THE CROWD EATING. 155 

there was a board behind the house on which 
stood a couple of tin basins filled with the 
muddy water of the Missouri, while a square 
foot of mirror, with brush and comb attached 
by means of a string, hung upon the wall for 
the use of '' the crowd." In all this there was 
evident intention to provide for the necessities 
of the guests, and I very heartily thanked the 
worthy host for setting so good an example of 
hotel keeping in Kansas. 

The host particularly prided himself on the 
powers of his cook, and the superiority of his 
table generally. "Step in, stranger; the 
crowd's going in to eat," was my summons, 
soon after six o'clock, to breakfast ; the same 
at half-past twelve for dinner ; and at six in 
the evening for supper. These are the good 
hours kept generally by Western folk. I 
entered the dining-room, saw the table covered 
with breakfast fare, including the usual small 
dishes of meat and cakes and apple preserve. 
The " crowd" was standing around the table, 
each man with a hand upon the back of his 
chair. The female portion of the company 
having been seated, a signal was given, and a 



156 



KANSAS. 



simultaneous action ensued. The movement 
of the chair with one hand, the seizure of 
the nearest small dish with the other, the 
sudden sitting down, and the commencement 
of a vigorous eating, were the work of a 
moment. In five minutes the company had 
left the table for the gallery on the street front, 
the better for damper, Indian-corn bread eaten 
with molasses, sliced bacon cooked, apparently, 
in grease, and tea or coffee. Some few, more 
fortunate or more quick to seize opportunities, 
had obtained a piece of Johnny-cake, or some 
apple-sauce, or other delicacy from the smaller 
dishes, in addition. At dinner it was the same 
— fat bacon, corn-bread, and tea or coffee. At 
supper, the same ; and at each meal in about 
equal quantity. The next day the same, and so 
every day. I concluded, in relation to the 
whole subject of the domestic economy of 
Kansas, that unsophisticated nature is contented 
with little, and that in Kansas, nature is allowed 
to have very much her own way in this par- 
ticular. 

The population of Leavenworth City fluctu- 
ates much with political occii^sinns. It would 



COMMERCE OF THE PLAINS. 157 

be safe to estimate it, however, at about 
1,500. I speak of the time of my visit, when 
it had been little more than eighteen months 
in existence as a settlement. It owes its pros- 
perity, in great part, to its favourable position on 
the Missouri, which brings to it much of the great 
commerce of the plains and the traffic with the 
Indians, in addition to the home trade of the 
territory. The commerce of the plains, which, 
during more than thirty years, has been rising 
in importance, has become, since the war with 
New Mexico, and the removal of commercial 
restrictions which has followed the war, a most 
valuable feature in the Kansas trade. Setting 
aside the very numerous trains in the service of 
the Government, which maintain communication 
between Fort Leavenworth and the outposts 
on the Santa Fe and Oregon routes, the annual 
value of the recrular commerce amounts to 
from $2,000,000 to 83,000,000. This employs 
many hundreds of waggons, and a still larger 
number of men, and tends materially to keep 
up the price of labour in the territory. Each 
waggon, again, requires twelve or more oxen, 
and a great number of mules are also employed 



158 KANSAS. 

on the expeditions. This makes the rearing of 
stock a very profitable employment for the 
farm lands in Kansas and Missouri. The trains 
go almost exclusively during the spring and 
summer months, when the prairie grass furnishes 
the necessary food for the animals. According 
to the season, they get over from ten to twenty 
miles in the day. A w^aggon is estimated to 
carry about 5,500 lb. The expense of transport 
varies with the season. It ranges from a little 
over SI in the best months to as much over 
$2 in the worst months, per hundred-weight 
per 100 miles. The distance from Leaven- 
w^orth to Santa Fe is between SOO and 900 
miles. In the winter months, when the jour- 
ney is accompanied by great hardship and peril, 
the mail is the only communication, which is 
transported once a month by means of mules. 
With Oregon the trade on the plains has almost 
ceased in favour of the route by the Pacific ; but 
the Government has still occasion to use the 
Oregon track as far as Fort Kearney and Fort 
Laramie, a distance of GOO miles. The great 
traffic, however, is to Fort Riley, Fort Munn, 
and thus to Santa F6. Independence in Mis- 



CARAVAN TRAINS. 159 

soiiri, Kansas City on the border, and Leaven- 
worth, are all made use of as the c?itrej)6ts 
of this trade ; and few things can be imagined 
more strangely picturesque than the sight 
which these cities present when, in the spring 
or early summer, their streets are filled with 
scores of long, cumbrous-looking covered wag- 
gons, and hundreds of oxen and mules ; while a 
noisy crew of light-hearted adventurers — Mis- 
sourian, Spanish, half-breed, and Indian — dress- 
ed in every variety of romantic costume, are 
busied in fitting out their train for its many 
weeks' journeying over the rolling grassy plains 
of the Western prairies. 



160 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Traffic with the Indians.— How it is carried on.— Business and 
Pleasure.— Good Per-ccntage.— Busy Appearance of Leaven- 
worth. — Necessaries of civilized Life. — Steamboats. — Rail- 
roads.— The Electric Telegraph.— Squatter -life.— Land with- 
out a Title. — The " Claim.-' — Division of new Lands. — A 
« Bee." — " Log-rolling." — Squatter Sovereignty. — '• Toma- 
hawk Rights." — "Entering," or "Pre-empting." — Abuses 
of the System. — "Jumping." — "Foundations." — A *• Cau- 
tion."— Right of Suflrage. 

An important item in the commerce of Lea- 
venworth is that which is brought to it by the 
Red Rovers of the prairie. 

The traffic with the Indians is a feature by 
itself, and one of not inconsiderable importance, 
in the trade of Kansas. It rests almost exclu- 
sively, however, in the hands of one or two 
parties, who, having been known by the Indian 
tribes for years, are able to monopolize the 
trade. The chief mode of carrying it on is 
the following : 

Every quarter of a year the Indian tribes to 



TRAFFIC WITH THE INDIANS. 161 

which allowances are dae receive their pay- 
ment from the Government agent. On the day 
of payment a grand feast is prepared by the 
merchant, and notice is sent to the various 
Indian tribes of the hospitalities to which they 
are invited. The entertainment is often very 
costly; the more costly the more profitable. 
On quarter's day the Indians come down, after 
long journeying, men, women, and children, 
often to the number of three or four hundred, to 
receive their pay and to make their purchases of 
white men's manufacture. With their pockets 
full,theysitdown to the feast; eat, drink, and are 
merry ; at the same time are forgetful ordinarily 
of the rules of prudence. The result is a large 
sale, and the next day the tribes are seen 
returning, the men with their hatchets and 
knives and accoutrements of all sorts ; and the 
squaws with their shawls and blankets, and 
beads and trinkets, often to the value of thou 
sands of dollars. One Indian trader sella 
annually about $10,000. At a recent sale 
the amount expended by the Indians reached 
$3,000. The account might be analyzed aa 
follows : 



162 KANSAS. 

Dollars. 
Cost price of articles . . . 1,000 
Expenditure on feast . . . 500 

Balance of profit cleared . . 1,500 



3,000 



Many of the articles yield 200 per cent, 
profit; but 150 per cent, is probably a fair 
average. In the traffic with the Indians gener- 
ally there are more tact and shrewdness mani- 
fested by the traders than fair dealing. In fact, 
honour, honesty, morality, all that is good, is 
lamentably rare in the Western border-land. 
The frontiersman has a manliness and generosity 
of his own which all must admire, but these 
qualities spring from the peculiarities of his 
position on the outskirts of civilization. There 
is little, it is to be feared, of higher motive. 
For the rest, the Western borderer is almost as 
untutored as a savage. He thinks little about 
his maker, God; as a consequence it comes, also, 
that he tliinks and cares little about his fellow- 
man. 

With a commerce thus extended, the quays 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT. 163 

of Leavenworth present a busy appearance, 
and had not peaceful industry been diverted by 
the turbulence of evil passions into other chan- 
nels, the newly-settled Territory would have 
been blessed already with a large measure of 
prosperity. As it is, large steamers daily pass 
up and down, and find active employment in 
the transport of goods and passengers. The 
imports of manufactured goods are very large ; 
and, while some of what we should deem the 
necessaries of civilized life are but beginning 
to be introduced, I have observed, as a con- 
trast, one or two piano-fortes being landed, to 
supply the w^ants, no doubt, of some refined 
denizen of the Eastern States. 

The size and number of the steamboats on 
the Missouri would occasion surprise to one 
unaccustomed to the rapid progress the Western 
world exhibits in all that furthers the building 
up of cities and the extension of commerce. I 
counted upon its waters from ten to fifteen 
large steamboats, each capable of accommo- 
dating, on the average, a hundred passengers 
at the least, and in effect carrying many more, 
in addition to their cargo, besides a much larger 



1G4 KANSAS. 

number of steamers of less capacity ; all of 
which were regularly employed upon the trade 
of the Missouri. This large traffic is in great 
part sustained by Kansas. Yet eighteen months 
before, there was not so much as a village of 
white settlers within the whole extent of the 
Territory. Railroads are already projected, but 
how far their formation is to be looked for as a 
speedy occurrence is doubtful, because the bills 
which empowered their construction, and which 
passed the first Legislature, were evidently a 
part of a false system of legislation, which 
grants the constitution of companies in order 
to gain the constituents as adherents and sup- 
porters of the granting power. The electric 
telegraph, however, is a mark of progress which, 
if not already, soon will be among the things 
accomplished. I remember observing the wires 
for several hundred miles up the Missouri, as 
far as Independence and Liberty, which are 
close to the Kansas border-line. In a very 
brief space of time they would, doubtless, be 
carried into the Territory. 

It is rather remarkable that, so far as Leaven- 
worth city is concerned, the ** improvements," 



BUSY APPEARANCE OF LEAVENWORTH. 165 

as all erections are called in America, are made 
u'^on land the tenure of which is not yet as- 
certained to the holders. The truth is that 
Leavenworth is built upon land still of right 
belonging to the Delaware Indians, and for 
which the price to be paid as purchase-money 
is not yet determined. It might occasion 
wonder that men should be induced, without a 
title to the soil, to expend the sums which have 
been laid out on some of the more solid and 
permanent buildings in the city. Sales arc al- 
ready effected, and land stands at a high price in 
the market for which the title does not yet exist, 
except the title of long occupation, which 
assigns it to the Delawares. All these mys- 
teries, however, become unravelled as the eye 
is opened to the methods of dealing adopted by 
our astute American cousins towards the Indian 
race. The day soon comes when the lots, on 
which the city stands, are put up to auction 
for the benefit of the old possessors of the soil. 
Bidding takes place. The price is perfectly 
understood beforehand. Occupant A bids his 
price for his own lot, B for his ; A does not in- 
terfere with B, and B does not interfere with A. 



166 KANSAS. 

Western honor forbids over-bidding, although 
the market value of the land may be ten times 
that offered. The auction terminates ; the ac- 
counts are settled ; the Indian must take his 
money, with the usual deductions, and go 
further West ; and the President of the United 
States grants a title-deed in his own name to 
the preemptor of the soil. Many in Leaven- 
worth are only speculators, w4io have entered 
lots in the city in order to realize with the ad- 
vancing value of land. 

Passing from town to country, the squatter 
life of Kansas claims notice by peculiarities of 
its own, as well as those which it has in com- 
mon with other Western territories. The log- 
hut, which I have already described, will furnish 
the reader with one important element in the 
life of the country. The log-hut stands in the 
midst of the " claim," generally of 160 acres, 
called a quarter-section ; and there, on his own 
freehold, the settler copes with the first diffi- 
culties, and commonly also reaps the after-fruit 
which belongs to the pioneer in the wilderness. 
In Kansas, however, as indeed in a less degree 
in other newly-settled Western lands, this pro- 



SQUATTER-LIFE. 167 

cedure is not marked by so much definiteness 
and regularity as might at the first be supposed. 
Even granting that all is previously arranged 
with the Indians, the title cannot be given 
until the Government-survey is made, which, 
by an excellent system, divides all new lands 
in the United States into counties, townships, 
sections, and quarter-sections, of equal size and 
perfect regularity of latitude and longitude. 
But long before the survey is completed, the 
squatter is upon the ground. He has already 
paced out his 160 acres, or his 320 acres, or 
whatever larger or smaller quantity of land he 
wishes to possess. He has begun to clear. The 
first trees he fells are already shaped into logs 
for his hut ; with smaller wood he is beginning 
his fencing. He has summoned a "bee," and a 
*' log-rolling" has taken place ; that is, he has 
asked neighbouring settlers to lend him their aid 
by rolling the logs to the site of his future 
home— a service which they are at liberty to ask 
of him in return when occasion requires. Last- 
ly, the arrow is marked over his doorway, and 
his name probably added besides, to warn all 
after-comers to respect prior rights. 



168 KANSAS. 

It is this system which constitutes *' squat- 
ting." The land is free. The settler may 
choose his home wherever he may please, 
provided no one else is before him in the field. 
*' Squatter sovereignty," and what are called 
"tomahawk rights," are introduced, and be- 
come the incipient law of the future territory. 
None durst interfere, if he might, with a "claim" 
thus made. The notice given to the Govern- 
ment authorities secures the pre-emption. The 
act itself is called that of " entering," or " pre- 
empting." When, probably a couple of years 
later, the survey is completed, and land-offices 
are opened in the territory, the squatter, if he 
chooses to retain the land, of which he has had 
the free use, ofters at the land sale the upset 
price of $1J per acre, over which no one bids 
against him, and the land becomes his by legal 
right and title. During the first stage, mutual 
protection is given to the squatters by their 
forming into " Squatters' Associations ;" and 
the " squatter-right" to a lot of ground is bought 
and sold on the strength of the law which ema- 
nates from these associations, and which asserts 
its power by rifle and tomahawk. 



"JtTMPING." 169 

Such is squatting theoretically, and as prac- 
tised in its purest forms, — a rough method, but 
one well adapted for the country to which it is 
applied. But there are many abuses to which 
this system has become, in Kansas, at least, 
subject in practice. Such an abuse is the 
practice technically called "jumping a claim," 
— one which has been only too frequent in the 
unsettled condition of the territory. To jump 
a claim is 'to take it, notwithstauding that it is 
pre-occupied by one who has already given 
notice of his claim to a pre-emptive title. The 
temptation to jump lies in the advantage of 
entering into another man's labours, and be- 
coming the happy possessor of improvements 
without the necessity of toiling for them. 
The price of jumping is ordinarily a fight. 
There is no other way of settling such matters. 
Neighbours, however, will generally help, being 
guided by their political sentiments as to the 
side they shall espouse. The weaker then 
goes to the wall, — a result which many Free- 
state settlers have had occasion to deplore in 
the numerous instances in which the act of 

jumping has been sustained by numbers and 
8 



170 KANSAS. 

combined strength beyond their power to resist. 
The fighting which follows has sometimes led 
to very serious consequences. More than one 
of the chief movements in the political history 
of Kansas have had their origin in difficulties 
arising from this prolific source. Even the 
House of Assembly has not been free from 
angry debates between members of the Legis- 
lature resulting from disputed claims. And 
one instance, at least, is known in the Upper 
House in which violent blows between the 
eyes, and other expressions of injured honour, 
were interchanged by two members of Coun- 
cil, in order to settle a difficulty originating in 
the precarious rights of Squatterdom. 

There are other abuses to w^iich the system 
is subject, which it is unnecessary to explain in 
detail ; but it may not be uninteresting to 
advert to one developmentof Kansas squatting, 
which, to the eye of the traveller, appears 
singularly ridiculous. Often, in riding over the 
prairie, the traveller meets with a small clear- 
ance, sufficient, at least, to show that some one 
has been there. Then, probably, a fev/ stakes 
are seen ; the settler has evidently intended to 



"foundatioxs" and " cautions." 171 

stake off his ground. Next appears the "foun- 
dation" — four logs, perhaps, placed in a quad- 
rangle, tlie earnest, apparently, of the log-hut 
that is to follow. And, on a bit of stick, lastly, 
or on a piece of paper nailed to a tree, appear 
the words, in a scarcely legible scrawl, " This 
is Jim Barton's claim ; and he'll shoot the 
first fellow as comes within a mile of it." Such 
an announcement is technically called a " cau- 
tion." As you read, you instinctively draw- 
back ; and, if on the look-out for a claim your- 
self, you seek fortune further on. But Jim 
Barton's "foundation" will probably never be 
occupied. If you are pleased with the site, 
you may avail yourself of Mr. Barton's begin- 
ning, and little fear his caution. Most probably 
that gentleman lives in a neighbouring State, 
but desires the elective franchise in Kansas. 
Anxious to give some colour to his claim as 
a voter, he has set his mark on a piece of land, 
and henceforth claims the privileges of an 
owner of the soil. But this is against all squat- 
ting law and precedent, Avhich requires that 
every squatter personally reside upon his claim. 
The men of Missouri, however, framed squatter 



172 KANSAS. 

laws for themselves in relation to Kansas ; 
among them, that '* protection should be afford- 
ed to no Abolitionist settlers ;" and, with the 
dangerous power conferred by recent legislation 
on "squatter sovereignty," they have found 
themselves free to exercise with impunity their 
own sovereign will. Many affirmed their right 
to a vote in the territory, although they only 
threw down an axe upon the ground ; others, 
if they only intended at some time to make 
a claim ; others, again, if they were only on the 
ground on the day of election. 



KANSAS TOPOGRAPHY. 173 



CHAPTER X.V. 

The Geography of Kansas. — Junction of the Kansas and Mis- 
souri Rivers. — Kansas City. — The Santa Fe Road. — Settle- 
ments up the Kansas River. — Lawrence. — Lecompton. — 
Topeka.— Kaw Half-breeds.— Fort Riley.— Mounds.— Cali- 
fornia Road.— The Oregon Trail— Crossing the Plains.— 
Character of the Country.— The Great American Desert. — 
The Rocky Mountains.— Banks of the Missouri. — Leaven- 
worth City and Fort, — Western Routes. — The Upper Mis- 
souri. — Osawatomie. — Climate and Soil of Kansas. — Produc- 
tion. — Wages. 

A TRAVELLER, approaching Kansas from the 
East by way of the Missouri, first sees the ter- 
ritory at the point of confluence of the Missouri 
and Kansas Rivers. On his right, the Missouri, 
which at this point suddenly changes its course, 
pours down its muddy volume from the North, 
bringing the washings of thousands of miles, 
which render its waters at some seasons of the 
year so densely turbid, that an object cannot be 
seen if lying a few inches beneath tlie surface. 
On his left, flows into it a somewhat purer and 
less turbulent stream, the Kaw or Kansas River, 



174 KANSAS. 

which, intersecting the Territory which bears 
its name in a direction ahiiost due AVest and 
East, leaves fertility all along its course, and 
from between thickly clustering oak and elm, 
maple and hickory, which beautifully shade its 
banks, terminates its windings in the rolling 
flood of the Missouri. 

At the point of junction between the two 
rivers, the traveller will discern amongst the 
wood the little Indian village known as Wyan- 
dot city, planted on the reserve belonging to 
the pale-faced tribe, which Cooper has rendered 
famous by his novel of " Wyandotte." On the 
left, facing the Missouri, at a short distance 
below the junction, stands the bustling little 
town called Kansas city, where the traveller 
will probably be induced to land. If its crowd- 
ed levee or quay were to be taken away, little 
would be left to Kansas city. It is oddly 
wedged in, like the lower town of Quebec in 
Canada, upon a narrow slip of land between 
the river and a steep bluff, so that if the city 
wish to extend its boundaries, it can only do so, 
as in the Canadian city, by mounting the bluff 
behind it, and forming an upper town. 



THE SANTA F& ROAD. 175 

From Kansas city the traveller may strike 
for the West, in order to form his first acquaint- 
ance with the territory. He may take the " San- 
ta Fe Road," in which case he will enter Kan- 
sas, after passing Westport, at the Shawnee 
Manual Labour School. Pie will see the Rev. 
Thomas Johnson's farm, as well as the Baptist 
and the Friends' IMission. Forty miles will 
bring him to Hickory Point, after which he 
will, in a second or third day's journey, ride 
through Willow Springs to Hundred and Ten. 
Sixty miles more of rolling prairie and grassy 
plain will take him to Council Grove, or Big 
John Spring, where, as the name indicates, the 
traveller may hold his council, and determine 
whether, having followed the Santa Fe Road for 
a hundred and thirty miles, he will trust him- 
self to the trail for a prairie-ride of weeks into 
the territory of New Mexico. This is the most 
Southern of the great routes. As far as Coun- 
cil Grove, it carries the traveller across an un- 
dulating tract, often overhigh wave-like ridges, 
commanding extensive views across the broad 
savannahs ; and, before he has reached Hickory 
Point, the course of the streams, or creeks as 



17t> KANSAS. 

they are there termed, will have indicated to 
the observer that he has left the valley of the 
Kaw, and that he is skirting the basin of the 
Osage and other large rivers of the South. 

Or, from Kansas city, the traveller may take 
the more frequented " California Road," in 
order to trace upward the Kansas river, and see 
the towns and settlements which have risen so 
rapidly upon its banks. In this case he has a 
ride of about forty miles, passing through a 
woody tract of country belonging, by Govern- 
ment-grant, to the Shawnee Indians, until he 
reaches the shady banks of the Wakarusa. 
Crossing the creek, he sees the spot famous as 
the camping-ground of the Governor's troops 
during the siege of Lawrence ; then, passing 
through Franklin, a strong pro-slavery village, 
he has four miles yet before him, and at length 
finds himself in the Free-state stronghold of 
Lawrence. Following for twelve miles more 
the southern margin of the Kaw, the traveller 
reaches Lecompton, the capital of the Terri- 
tory, according to the designation of the Terri- 
torial Legislature. The situation of Lecompton 
is less attractive than that Lawrence, but it 



SETTLEMENTS OX THE KAW RIVER. 177 

has received some impulse by being made the 
seat of Government. The military tents are 
probably now removed, but there for long the 
soldiers' tents marked the site of the Western 
encampment, and the place of confinement for 
the Free-state Governor, editors, and a hundred 
more political offenders. Another twelve miles' 
stage takes the traveller through Tecumseh to 
Topeka, vvhere he sees the little building 
known by the Free-state people as Constitution 
Hall, and finds himself at the seat of Govern- 
ment and intended capital under the Free-state 
rc.^unc. 

Here our explorer will probably cross the 
river, and as he wanders about its northern 
bank, and passes from grove to thicket, and 
creek to prairie, he will sec, here and there, a 
curling smoke, and, on nearer approach, will find, 
he is on a spot where a few families of Kaw 
half-breeds have erected their wigwams, and 
made for themselves a home. From the Indian 
village he may return, if he please, through the 
Delaware reserve to Kansas city ; following in 
this case the lefc bank of the river, and coming 

out by the old Delaware road at Wyandot city, 

8* 



17S KANSAS. 

whence he reaches his destination, after a 
homeward journey of about seventy miles; 
or he may take the military road to Leaven- 
worth, a distance of about fifty miles, passing 
on his way the Grasshopper and Stranger 
Creeks, and gently ascending or descending 
wdth the wavy roll of the prairie. It may be, 
however, that the traveller wishes to strike for 
the West, in which case he may follow upward 
the course of the Kansas River by the Fort 
Riley Road, passing the St. Mary's Catholic 
Mission, crossing the Vermilion and Big Blue 
Rivers, and glancing at a few small villages 
founded by Free-state settlers, until he reaches 
Pawnee and Fort Riley, at the confluence of 
the Smoky Hill and Republican Forks. At 
various points in the course of his journeying, 
the traveller will have observed mounds, ap- 
parently natural, but sometimes showing indi- 
cations of artiticial erections upon their summit, 
which will remind him of the interesting mounds 
in the Ohio and the Mississippi valleys, and 
suggest speculations as to the earlier dwellers 
upon the banks of the Kaw. 

Should the inclinations of the traveller lead 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 179 

him towards California, he has but to take the 
California road branching out in a northwesterly 
direction after crossing the Vermilion Creek, and 
he will strike, in about forty miles, the great 
Oregon and California trail, which, patiently 
followed through a number of weary weeks, 
w^ill conduct him in safety to the golden State. 
For the first thousand miles, as far as Bear 
River, the Oregon, Californian, and Utah par- 
ties journey together, taking the North Fork 
of the Platte River, and crossing the Rocky 
Mountain ciiain by the great South pass. At 
Bear River they part. The few who go to 
Oregon have another thousand miles before 
them. The Californians have an equal distance, 
dropping their Mormon companions eighty 
miles upon their route, as they pass the city of 
the Great Salt Lake. According to the route 
traversed, the entire length of the ride varies 
from 2050 to 2350 miles. A like distance, 
could it be laid off from London in a direct line, 
would transport a person eastward to the bor- 
ders of Tartary, or to the banks of the Tigris 
and Euplirates ; or southward, it would lead 
bim beyond the limits of the Great Desert of 



180 KANSAS. 

Africa. Yet, as many as eighty thousand travel- 
lers have been known to cross the plains in 
a single year. It is unnecessary to remark 
that these overland expeditions, with the large 
waggons and long teams of oxen and in- 
numerable mules which accompany them, im- 
^ly a prairie traffic of not inconsiderable 
activity. 

By all accounts, these long overland journeys, 
after the first novelty is passed, are far from 
attractive. The slow ascent and descent of the 
prairie waves, the crossing of interminable sa- 
vannahs, without an object, except the faithless 
mirage, to relieve the dead uniformity of the 
scene, the horizon of prairie-grass ever encircling 
the traveller, however interesting for the first 
day or two, become after a time unspeakably 
monotonous. The flying of the eagle overhead, 
the starting of a herd of buffalo, the meeting 
of another train of travellers, the encounter of 
a party of Indians, friendly or hostile, come to 
be the notable events of the pilgrimage, even 
as, on an ocean voyage, the dull monotony is 
relieved by the sighting of a distant sail, the 
exchange of news with a returning ship, the 



CRossma the plains. ISl 

disturbance of a shoal of sharks, or the catching 
of some luckless whale. 

On the Westward route, moreover, the attrac- 
tions of the landscape and the comforts of the 
traveller suffer a speedy decrease, while dangers 
multiply and miseries of every kind grow apace. 
For the first hundred and fifty miles the road 
traverses richly-wooded, rolling prairie, on which 
the fertile soil has caused so luxuriant a growth 
of prairie-grass, that the traveller may sit down 
and conceal himself in its midst. The fertile 
region of "tall grass" being left behind, broad, 
sandy plains are reached, almost destitute of 
timber, but carpeted with the fine, slender " buf- 
flilo-grass," which countless herds of bufililo, 
elk, and antelope keep short by their constant 
browzing. These pasture lands continue for 
about 850 miles westward. The rivers, which 
cut their deep channels through this region, 
afford the traveller only too frequent occasions 
for practice in the art of fording, which, with 
the scores of oxen and the long heavy waggons 
which accompany the caravan, is a process 
involving difficulty and frequent danger. The 
larger streams are crossed by boats. 



182 KANSAS. 

At length the finely-cropped buffalo-grass 
disappears, and nothing is left but a sterile 
waste, of a light sandy color, unrelieved by 
river, rock, or tree. The soil is a kind of marl, 
with indications of limestone. This tract is 
knov^n as the " Great American Desert," and 
stretches from North to South over 1,000 miles 
of country. In following the Santa Fe trail, 
wild, roving tribes of Cheyennes and Arapahoe 
Indians will probably be met in this district, as 
ill the preceding the hunting-grounds of the 
Kaws are traversed. On the Oregon trail, the 
unfortunate traveller may cross the path of the 
savage Sioux, who, if they have come down 
from the North on an expedition of warfare or 
revenge, will not spare. The western bounda- 
ry of the desert region exhibits a curious phe- 
nomenon. Here and there, and in some parts 
in considerable number, appear elevations of 
the soil, platforms rather than mounds, perpen- 
dicular at the side, and flat upon the surface, 
varying in height from fifteen to fifty feet, and 
of exceedingly various breadth. These flat 
mounds are commonly called buUcs, a word 
adopted from the Canadian French. The 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 183 

Spaniards of New Mexico call them cerros. 
Through the action of the weather, these biittes 
assume frequently most fantastic shapes, remind- 
ing one of gaunt battlements and towers. Hence 
the well-known Court House, Cathedral, and 
Chimneys, familiar to the traveller on the Ore- 
gon trail. 

From this point to the Rocky Mountains, the 
country is represented by travellers in glowing 
colours. They speak of a rich soil, of fertilizing 
streams, of well-timbered groves, of a genial 
climate, of attractive landscape, of sunny 
slopes and sheltered valleys, of laughing water- 
falls, and green quiet meadow-lands, of fruits 
for every taste, and flowers of every hue. 
Whether an actual paradise or not, these 
pleasant characteristics seem to belong to 
the slopes and spurs of the Rocky Moun- 
tains throughout the Southern portion of the 
chain. 

I have thus far attempted to describe the 
geographical features of Kansas, as seen by the 
traveller who ventures across the plains, gather- 
ing my information from the narratives of the 
expeditions of Colonel Fremont, Colonel Emory, 



184 KANSAS. 

and other explorers. I must again return to 
ground trodden by myself. 

I have already accompanied the traveller 
from Kansas city up the Kaw River to the 
various settlements upon its banks. It remains 
that that portion of Kansas be visited, which 
lies upon the Missouri bank, and confronts the 
counties of Clay, Jackson, and Platte, in Mis- 
souri State. 

In ascending the Missouri, the thirty miles 
which intervene between Kansas city and 
Leavenworth, present little to detain the trav- 
eller. Both in Kansas on his left, and Missouri 
on his right, he sees a rich reddish soil of great 
depth, inviting to the agriculturist and the raiser 
of stock, and giving promise of speedily yielding 
support to a busy population. Delaware city 
is passed, — a small cluster of houses, which 
would probably not have attained civic honours, 
were it not for the sanguine aspirations of 
land-speculators. Within a few miles is the 
Moravian Mission to the Mu usees, — a mere 
fragment of that tribe, who, with afev/ flimilies 
of Sfcockbridi^e Indians, do not number more 
than about a hundred and fifty souls. Then 



THE WESTERN ROUTE. 185 

come Leavenworth city and Fort Leaven- 
worth, of which some description has been 
already attempted. 

From the Fort, should the traveller desire to 
explore the interior, he has choice of two 
roads, both leading Westward. The more 
Southern one, called the Fort Riley Road, 
passes through Easton, and strikes the Kaw 
nearly opposite Topeka. The more Northern, 
likewise a Government road, takes to Fort 
Kearney, where it joins the great trail up the 
valley of the Platte, and conducts, by the route 
already described, to the South Pass, and thence 
to the Pacific Ocean. 

Ascending the Missouri from Leavenworth, 
Kickapoo is speedily reached, after which Wes- 
ton is seen on the Missouri side. At thirty 
miles distance is Atchison, the home of Dr. 
Stringfellow, and the town whence his furious 
Squatter Sovereign is issued. Doniphan, Lewis- 
ton, Palermo — small places chiefly settled from 
Missouri — succeed; and then, sixty miles above 
Leavenworth, the steamboat reaches ordinarily 
its last landing-place at St. Joseph's — popularly 
called St. Joe's — in Missouri. Some steamers 



18(5 KANSAS. 

ascend the river higher to Nebraska, in which 
case they make Council Bluffs, 270 miles above 
Leavenworth, their final destination, embarking 
or disembarking at that point those passengers 
who reach the Territory by the Northern route 
through Iowa. 

Having reached the end of ])Opulation North- 
ward, it remains only to say that tliere are one 
or two roads Southward from Kansas city, 
which conduct to the Osage River, besides the 
Sac trail which leads from the Santa Fe road to 
the Neosho or Grand River. Upon the Osage, 
near the junction of the Pottawatomie, is a 
Free-state settlement, which, very much in 
defiance of sound philology, has been named 
Osawatomie, the design being to preserve in 
the name of the town some respectful remem- 
brance of the two streams, by the side of w^iich 
it is built. Unphilosophical, however, as such 
a system of nomenclature may be, it has a 
better claim to originality than that exhibited 
in a small town in the extreme North, for 
which the fertile brains of the inliahitants 
could invent no better name than Lawrence 
No. 2. 



THE CLIMATE AND SOIL. 187 

The climate and soil of Eastern Kansas offer 
much that is inviting to the settler. The 
extremes of heat and cold in the summer and 
winter seasons are indeed much in excess of 
anything experienced in England. Neverthe- 
less, the temperature is more moderate than in 
many parts of the American continent, and the 
Territory is situated within that favoured zone 
which makes it rich as a corn and hemp 
producing country. The crop of Indian corn, 
as far as I could ascertain, has generally yielded 
from fifty to eighty bushels per acre. Wheat, 
fifteen to twenty bushels. Hemp, which on the 
Missourian side of the river is the chief sta- 
ple, is there found to yield in favourable 
situations 1,000 lbs. to the acre. Tobacco may 
probably be grown in some portions of the 
Territory. 

The wages paid for farm labour at the time 
of my visit, were about the same as those paid 
for white labour in Missouri. Men employed 
in sawing and clearing — the principal work of 
the Western settler — obtained twenty dollars 
per month and their board. But a fine field 
for the intelligent and enterprising is oftered 



188 KANSAS. 

by the overland trains, which give employment 
at high wages to a large number of the younger 
men. In some instances I learned that superior 
hands were in the receipt of a hundred dollars 
per month. 

From the same cause an important branch of 
farming in Kansas and Missouri is the raising 
of stock. The Western expeditions absorb 
annually a very large number of oxen and 
mules. They, at the same time, furnish a valu- 
able market for the consumption of the produce 
raised on the farms. 



THE RED RACES OF KANSAS 189 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Red Races of Kansas. — Variety of Condition. — Deep De- 
basement. — Prejudicial Intercourse with White Men. — Fire- 
water. — Civilization. — Efforts for the Elevation of the Indian 
Tribes. — Good Fruit. — The Indigenous Tribes of Kansas. — 
Kaws, Osages, Ottoes, Pawnees. — A Total Abstinence Tribe. 
— The Immigrant Tribes. — Shawnees, Delawares, Wyan- 
dots. — A Wyandot Family. — Kickapoos, Sacs and Foxes, 
lowas. — Pottawatomies, Sacs and Foxes. Ottowas. — Re- 
sults. 

The white man's occupancy of Kansas is 
an event only of yesterday. So recently as 
August, 1854, it could be written that there 
was *'not a town or village of whites in 
either Kansas or Nebraska." Till then these 
vast territories were, as they still in great 
part continue to be, the red man's hunting- 
grounds. 

These Indian aborigines exist in great variety 
of tribes, and in almost equal variety of com- 
plexion, physical form, and degree of civiliza- 
tion, throughout the hundreds of thousands of 
square miles that lie between the United States 



190 KANSAS. 

and the Rocky Mountains. Very much, accord- 
ing to which of these tribes a traveller may 
fall in with, will be his impression as to 
whether the American Indians are living in a 
state of brutal debasement, and w^asting away 
under the influence of vice and disease com- 
bined with frequent war and famine, or whether 
they are advancing in the arts of peace and 
civilization, and forming populous and happy 
commonw^ealths. I have myself witnessed, in 
t4'ibes removed but a short distance from one 
another, the extremes of a brutality akin to 
that of the beast, and a civilization which might 
with advantage be copied by the white men in 
their neighbourhood. This remarkable difference 
of condition is not easily associated with the 
distinction of tribe, but is very readily connect- 
ed with the diversity of circumstance and 
influence by which the particular tribe may 
have been surrounded. 

Where no civihzing influence is brought to 
bear, the red man lives out his rude, savage 
life, hunting the bufl:alo and the elk, gorging 
himself when his chase is successful until he is 
insensible through repletion, and then awaking 



CONDITION OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. 191 

to spend days, perhaps, without a morsel of 
food; never cultivating the soil, but loving only 
the life of the nomade ; ever warring against 
his neighbours of another tribe, and himself the 
victim of the most cruel superstitions and tor- 
turing fears. In such a state, there is no pro- 
gress towards civilization. One generation goes 
and another comes, no whit the better than 
its predecessor, and often very much the 
smaller through famine or the ravages of small- 
pox, or through extermination by a more power- 
ful tribe. Thus the Pawnees, who once spread 
over Kansas and Nebraska, to the number of 
nearly thirty thousand, and made other tribes 
submit to their power, have been reduced to a 
few thousand in number by visitations of small- 
pox, and by the superior power of the yet more 
savage Sioux, who have come down upon them 
from the North. Those that remain owe pro- 
bably their existence to the fact that, in their 
weakness, they have accepted the protection of 
the whites, and have made some beginnings to- 
wards the possession of a civilized life. 

Again, w^here — as is frequently the case — the 
relations of the white man to the Indian have 



192 KANSAS. 

been accompanied by unhappy influences, the 
result is seen in the red man knowing some- 
thing of civilization, but knowing and imitating 
only its vicious side. Where there has been 
tyranny and wrong on the part of the white 
man, the Indian's native suspicion and vindic- 
tiveness have been confirmed and increased. 
Where the Government agent has, with the one 
hand, dealt out in large amount the annuities 
voted by Congress, and with the other received 
the money back in exchange for rum ; or where, 
the agent being more honest, some speculating 
trader has done his left hand's work for him ; 
the result has been a fearful drunkenness, and the 
growth of a passion which the Indian knows 
not how to curb. For a draught of the *' fire- 
water," the Indian will sometimes give all that 
he has. And it is undeniable that the cupidity 
of the white man has dealt out destruction 
amongst tens of thousands of the Indian race. 

There are other ways besides, which it were 
a shame to dwell upon, in which contact with 
the races called civilized has only more bru- 
talized the brutal, spread disease and death 
among the red men's ranks, and given an out- 



CIVILIZATIOX. 193 

ward garniture of seeming civilization only to 
hide new shapes of vice and hideous deformity. 
Instances I need not give, for, to a greater or 
less degree, every Indian tribe is an example of 
the prejudicial influences of contact with the 
superior race. I may remark, however, as a 
further special illustration, that the half-breeds, 
wherever they exist in America, almost univer- 
ally exhibit a union of the vices of the two 
races whence they are derived, whilst their cor- 
responding virtues are lost. 

As I have looked at the white men with 
whom the aboriginal tribes have to deal, I have 
often wondered how any very happy influence 
upon the Indian character could be anticipated 
from their companionship and example. 

But in some of the red races, civilization and 
Christian teaching have shown marvellous 
power. The instances just adverted to, where 
drunkenness and debauchery are the two chief 
lessons learned from association with the whites, 
are not instances of the failure of civilization 
and Christianity to elevate the savage, but of 
that which is not truly the one as it is eminent- 
ly not the other. It would be very unfair, 
9 



194 KANSAS. 

however, to charge the United States* Govern- 
ment with wholesale injustice, or even with 
neglect, in relation to the native tribes. Equal- 
ly unfair would it be to brhig its agents under 
a universal censure, as forgetful of the claims of 
humanity, and grasping only at self-advantage. 
It is true the history of the Indians in America, 
as from territory to territory they have been 
pushed out Westward before the advancing tide 
of white population, has been a most mournful 
one — mournful, I mean, not because they have 
had to yield to another race, but because of the 
barbarous cruelty with which the conquest has 
been, in former years at least, pursued. It were 
easy to gather from among the inhabitants of 
the States whole volumes of traditionary his- 
tory as to the dealings of their fathers with the 
Indians; and nine-tenths of these traditions are 
traditions of bood, telling of the white man's 
cruelty and the red man's revenge. But for 
long the United States' Government has at- 
tempted to act honourably with the aboriginal 
possessors of the land. Congress votes yearly 
large sums as annuities to the dispossessed 
tribes. It sends an agent to arrange with the 



TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS. 195 

heads of the tribe for the sale of their land ; and, 
althouQ:h the Indians are not aware how dis- 
proportioned the sum offered is to the valae of 
the land, still they accept the terms ; and, fair 
or unfair as to tlie means by which the nego- 
tiation is concluded, the Government thus pays 
for what it takes. Further, ic grants the dis- 
possessed tribes reservations for their exclusive 
right. It establishes schools, sustains missions, 
provides farming implements and stock, in- 
troduces agriculture, and seeks to encourage 
labour and thrift, and thus to mould them into 
the habits of civilization. 

Amongst the best examples of the happy 
effects of this mode of treatment, are those 
tribes which are now located in what is called 
the Indian Territor}^ immediately South of 
Kansas. This Territory contains a population 
of about a hundred thousand, principally Che- 
rokees, Creeks, and Choctaws. These people 
have come under the influence of Christian 
teaching, and exhibit in a remarkable manner 
the fruits of the better policy adopted towards 
them. They have ceased to exist as tribes, 
and, possessing housea and farms, have formed 



196 KANSAS. 

themselves into a social order. Each nation 
has its own government, republican in form, 
and framed generally after the model of the 
United States. Each has its wTitten constitu- 
tion and laws. They have their public schools, 
education being provided for through their 
public funds. Large quantities of cotton and 
other produce are yearly sent by them to the 
New Orleans market. In the mechanical arts 
they have made considerable progress. The 
Scriptures and other books are in circulation 
in their own languages. The Cherokees and 
Choctaws each have their newspaper ; and the 
former of these, being the most advanced, have 
two seminaries for higher instruction, as well 
as an orphan school — the former costing 70,000, 
the latter 18,000 dollars. Amongst the Chero- 
kees are also some who have sought higher 
education in the universities of the States, and 
distinguished themselves by their attainments. 
And there are many who, as large planters, 
own negro slaves, for which practice they are 
also indebted to white civilization, and prove, 
I was informed, to be kind rather than tyran- 
nical masters. These Indians are very anxious 



REAL CIVILIZATIOX. 197 

to be in no particular behind their white neigh- 
bours, and look forward to their government 
being recognized by the Confederacy, and 
themselves admitted to representation in Con- 
gress. 

According, therefore, as they have been 
brought under elevating influences or other- 
wise, the Indians of North America may be 
found, either living in the lowest depth of sav- 
age barbarism, steeped in the most loathsome 
vice and misery, and dwindling away as a con- 
sequence of their corruption ; or, on the other 
liand, thriving and prosperous, possessing in 
some degree the refined enjoyments, and ex- 
hibiting the good fruits w^hich belong to a 
civilized condition. 

Amongst the Indians inhabiting Kansas, may 
be seen examples of almost every stage, from 
the lowest to the highest. It is convenient to 
classify the Indian tribes as indigenous and im- 
migrant. The former are natives of the soil 
they inhabit, and are commonly found in their 
native debasement unaffected by civilizing influ- 
ences. The latter belong originally to other 
parts of the continent, now occupied by a large 



198 KANSAS. 

and busy population, and have been transported 
to the country they inhabit, or driven to it by 
the Westward advance of the dominant race. It 
is among these that the examples of a high 
social condition to which I have adverted, are 
to be found. 

Of the tribes indigenous to Kansas, the most 
numerous are the Kansas or Kaw Indians, from 
which the Territory derives its name, who — 
with the Osages in the Southern, and the Ot- 
toes in the Northern portion of the Territory, 
and some smaller tribes — make up the wild, 
roving population which scours its Central and 
Western plains. The Osages, all savage as 
they are, honourably distinguish themselves by 
their firm adherence to temperance principles. 
Their abhorrence of the " fire-water" is very 
remarkable, and is as rare as it is praiseworthy. 
These tribes all speak dialects of the Dacotah 
language, and thus identify themselves as mem- 
bers of the great family of the Sioux, one of the 
most savage of the Indian tribes, which has 
descended at different periods like a Northern 
scourge, spreading its blood-thirsty armies for a 
thousand miles over the savannahs of the West. 



THE RED ROVERS OF KANSAS. 199 

The Pawnees are a distinct race, and belong to 
Kansas, but are now much reduced in number. 
These, with the several Sioux tribes mentioned, 
form the native Indian population of Kansas, 
estimated at about eleven thousand, tenanting 
the broad open prairie, and often causing terror 
to the travellers crossing in the trains. 

The Indian populations introduced from the 
East, and owning lands which liave been as- 
signed to them by the Government, are more 
numerous. They reach probably fourteen thou- 
sand. They vary much as to their degree of 
civilization. The fertile banks of the lower 
Kansas are cultivated by the Shawnees on the 
right or Southern banlv, and by the Delawares 
and Wyandots on the North, following the 
margin of the Missouri as far as Leavenworth. 
The Shawnees have been well cared for, are 
good agriculturists, and have acquired generally 
the arts of civilized life. For fifty years the 
Society of Friends has sustained a Mission 
amongst them; and the Methodists and Bap- 
tists have likewise their schools for manual la- 
bor and instruction. The Wyandots are equal- 
ly advanced. They own some beautiful lands, 



200 KAN.^AS. 

purchased from the Delawares, at the junction 
of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. They are 
remarkably fair in complexion, and I have met 
with many whose appearance, were they trans- 
ported to our own country, would hardly be- 
tray their Indian origin. I journeyed for a 
week in company with a family of Wyandots, 
coming from one of the missions. The family 
consisted of two women, with several children, 
the eldest a grown lad. On board the steam- 
boat, American etiquette, which is v/onderfuUy 
tenacious of the rights of color, required that 
the Wyandot family should wait at each meal 
until every white passenger had eaten, when 
they viere at liberty to sit down with the 
slaves and partake of whatever might remain. 
Yet they paid their full fare, and their deport- 
ment v/as a contrast in refinement to that of 
the self-styled " ladies," with whom they were 
accounted unv/orthy to sit at the same table. 

Following the Missouri Northward from the 
Delaware reserve, we meet : first, the Kicka- 
poos, a few miles from Fort Leavenworth ; 
and upon their lands some few hundreds of Win- 
nebagoes and Pottawatomies ; further North, 



WYAXDOTS, DELAWAKES, ETC. 201 

some of the Scics and Foxes of Missouri ; and, 
lastly, the lowas, whose reservation reaches 
to the Nebraska border. The condition of the 
lowas is very deplorable. They are of that 
class of Indians to whom contact with the 
whites, and participation in Government allow- 
ances, have wrought harm rather than good. 
They lead a life of miserable idleness, wear no 
dress beyond the blanket, and seem to set no 
value on efforts made for the amelioration of 
their condition. 

Again, if we go from the Kansas river South- 
ward, after passing the Shawnee reserve, v/e 
meet with the Pottawatomies, and small num- 
bers of Weas and Piankeshaws, Peorias and 
Kaskaskias. These, with the Miamis, cluster 
about the banks of the Osage river and its 
tributaries. Further Westward, upon the Ma- 
rais des Cj^gnes Creek, are to be found upwards 
of two thousand of the Sacs and Foxes from the 
Upper Mississippi. But more interesting is 
the small community of Otto was and Chip- 
pewas, in the same district, whose condition 
a devoted Baptist missionary, the Rev. J. 
Meeker, has raised to one of a most encour- 



202 KANSAS. 

aging character. The people have been induced 
to give up their tribe system, and under the 
stimulus of independent property, they advance 
in numbers, in wealth, and, above all, in moral 
and intellectual elevation. Further South, we 
come upon the highly ci\"ilized Cherokees of 
the Indian territory. The v/hole of these 
reservations are in the Eastern portion of Kan- 
sas. And one eftect of the rapid immigration of 
white settlers which has taken place during 
the last two years, will be, to dispossess many 
of these Indians, to cause their transference 
once more to a district further West. 

Upon the whole, there is more to sadden 
than to cheer in the aspect presented by the 
Indian race on the Western plains of America. 
In their natural condition, unutterably debased, 
sunk almost to the level of the brute, their 
contact with the white race has generally con- 
tributed but little to their moral and social 
elevation. Where the circumstances of this 
contact, however rarely, have been more favour- 
able, a different result is manifested, and in 
instances of complete civilization, elements of 
character are developed which command admi- 



RESULTS. 203 

ration. There is sufficient in this to prove that 
the Red Indian is perfectly susceptible of ele- 
vating influences, and capable of b-eing raised 
to his true position and dignity as a man; 
sufficient, therefore, to indicate the responsi- 
bility of the white man in relation to the race, 
and to call for a regret that the intercourse 
which has hitherto existed, has been of a char- 
acter so little calculated to discharge that 
responsibility aright. 



204 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XYIL 

Visit to a Company of Sioux Indians.— Their Crimes and 
Punishment. — A timid Companion. — Ho ! bo ! ho ! ho ! — 
Friendship uccepted.— Friendship mistrusted. — Exhibition 
of Displeasure. — The Calumet of Peace. — Indian Hospital- 
ity.— Te-o-liiin-ko's Appearance, Dress, and Feats. — Torn 
Belly in a Blanket.— The Squaw and Pappoose.— Furnish- 
iahings of the Tent. — Teaching the young Idea how to Shoot. 
— Solemn Melancholy. — Parting Friendship. — Mother and 
Child. — Description of Kansas Life concluded. — The lieigu 
of Terror. 

One hot afternoon, having paid a visit afc Fort 
Leavenworth, I spent a while before returning 
to the exciting scenes in the city, in strolling 
about the grassy slopes and shady groves in 
the neighbourhood of the Government reserve. 
Suddenly my eye fell .upon a little cluster 
of ten^ts, within a spacious inclosure, upon the 
flank of a gently-swelling prairie- wave. As I 
looked, there sprang from under one of the 
tents a savage-looking figure, to whom paint 
supplied the place of more seemly apparel. 
The streaked and spotted savage darted forth 



VISIT TO A SIOUX ENCAMPMENT. 205 

as if under some resistless impulse, raised his 
arrow towards the sky, shot high and far, ran 
for the fallen shaft, and returned to his hiding- 
place, in less time than is needed to recount the 
feat. Next appeared a woman, who crossed, 
in her blanket, from one tent to another. I 
knew at once that the Indians before me were 
the company of Sioux of whom I had heard, an 
hour previously, from Colonel Sumner. 

These Sioux — belonging to the most savage 
of the prairie tribes — had been guilty, during 
the previous year, of stopping the mail on its 
way across the plains to Utah, and of murdering 
one of the officers in charge. It was not the 
first occasion on which they had attacked parties 
of travellers on the Western route. For this 
act a number of the tribe implicated had been 
taken as prisoners. Each man was privileged 
to select from his wives the squaw of his choice ; 
and the captive band had been conveyed to Fort 
Leavenworth, and kept in confinement upon the 
Government reserve. In the spring of 1856 
the President granted them a pardon. Colonel 
Sumner had the pleasing duty of ordering their 
shackles to be knocked off, and of beholding 



206 KANSAS. 

their gratitude in high leaps and joyous antics. 
They were now waiting an opportunity of con- 
voy, by which they might be safely returned to 
their native wilds — the presence of many hos- 
tile tribes in the intervening territory being 
sufficient to make Fort Leavenworth a prison- 
house to them, from which they could not 
escape without a protecting force. Such was 
the history of this Dacotah band, as related to 
me by Colonel Sumner. 

I crossed the fence and walked towards the 
tents, designing to form a more intimate 
acquaintance with the warrior tribe of which 
I had so often heard. I found I was not alone. 
A white man was looking from a distance at 
the lodges and their wild tenantry, whom I 
approached with the inquiry whether he had 
come to see the Indians. My white brother 
was not very communicative, but, on being 
pressed, said he was '• took aback some, just a 
spot ; he'd never sot eyes on such a salvagerous 
set of coons ; he v/as nary lick afeared, not by 
a long sight, but he kinder druther keep tracks 
a little ways oiF such a salvagerous, onairthly 
set ; they smelt so powerful bad." I told him 



ho! ho! ho! ho! 207 

I comprehended his meaning, and placing 
myself between him and his supposed danger, 
induced him to accompany me round the side 
of the little encampment to get a front view 
of the tents and their occupants. In the mean 
time I told my companion briefly what I knew 
of the Indians; that they were Sioux, had 
attacked a train and committed murder, &c. 
]\Iy friend listened in silence. 

We had examined from a short distance one 
or two interiors without attracting notice. At 
length we stood in front of a tent at some 
twenty yards distance, within which were two 
men, a woman, and a child. "Ho! Ho! Ho! 
Ho !" A shout, shrill and startling, showed 
that we were seen. It came from the head of 
the family ; I cannot recall his name, but Te-o- 
kun-ko, the Swift, will answer the present 
purpose not inappropriately. The tall grim 
savage, who beyond a girdle had no covering 
except a thick sheathing of vermilion, ochre, 
and other pigments mingled \\\th grease, sprang 
forward as he shouted, bow and arrow in hand, 
and made a beckoning motion with his arm. 
My companion w^as behind me, so that I was 



208 KANSAS. 

not in a position to see how the invitation 
alFected him; but for myself, acting upon 
former experience, I accepted it immediately, 
and as I stepped quickly forward, found hands 
extended from within the tent, which I shook 
with a hearty cheerfulness. 

But it was with Tah-zce-keh-dd-cha, the Torn 
Belly, and Tchon-su-mons-ka, the Sand-Bar, 
mistress of the lodge, in her robe of blue and 
belt of shining buttons, that I was shaking 
hands, for Te-o-kim-ko was already levelling 
his arrow at some offending object, on which 
he fixed an eye glaring with rage. 1 looked 
round, and to my horror discovered it to be none 
other than my companion, whom the shrill cry 
of the Sioux, half a minute before, had evidently 
pierced with terror, and who, panic-stricken, 
was " making tracks" as fast as his legs would 
bear him. Indians, thought I, never miss their 
aim. Te-o-kiin-ko's rage was horrible to behold. 
A tragedy was surely to take place instantly 
before my eyes. No, a comedyj Te-o-kun-ko 
raises steadily his arrow towards the sky, 
whilst he bends his body backwards for a far 
upward shot. His head falls carelessly over his 



THE CALUMET OF PEACE. 209 

shoulder towards his pale-faced guest, his coun- 
tenance relaxes, the eye loses its fiery rage, and 
with an unearthly "Ha! ha! ha!" the arrow 
is sprung from the bow ; it makes an acute 
arc far up in the blue sky, and descends, as its 
owner intended it should, at the feet of a horse, 
midway between himself and the mean-spirited 
runaway who had mistrusted his friendship. 

I was now received into the family, and 
honoured as a guest. There was little space to 
spare beneath the tent ; but lie of the Torn 
Belly, Tiih-zee-keh-dd-cha, made me sit upon 
the ground, and drew me close to his side, that 
I niii^ht be sheltered from the scorchins: sun. 
Te-o-kun-ko the meanwhile lit the calumet 
of peace, and paid his guest the highest re- 
spect it is in the power of Indian host to 
ofier. The ugly, squat-shaped, broad-faced 
child played about my feet ; so I patted his wild 
little head, and won the mother, Tch6n-su- 
mons-ka. 

Te-o-kun-ko was of a restless disposition. 
He never laid down his bow, but sprang out 
frequently from beneath the tent to shoot an 
arrow high aloft, run after it, and return. His 



210 KANSAS. 

dress I hfive described in saying he had a blue 
girdle sustained by a leathern strap. He was 
tall, and of that extreme slenderness of limb 
only to be seen amongst certain wild races. 
His hair was parted in the centre, and brought 
down over each shoulder in a plait of two feet 
in length, into which horse-hair and other sub- 
stances were introduced, and which terminated 
in a ball of thyme or other scented herb. Be- 
hind the head the hair was brought back, and 
terminated by a brass ring. He wore car-rings ; 
also a necklace of beads, long and short, alter- 
nately, and a second, looser necklace of brass 
chain. Further, he had armlets — five or fix 
coils of stout brass wire above the elbow, two 
coils at the wrist. Each little finger had its 
ring. In his hand was his bow and a few 
arrows — the arrows broad at the point, and 
fledged with goose quill and other feathers 
brightly dyed. Other adornment had he none, 
save streaks of bright paint across his brow and 
cheeks, and spots and patches, red and yel- 
low, about his naked body. 

Tah-zee-keh-dd-cha^at my elbow, w^as a quiet 
sprite. He had a blanket loosely thrown around 



INDIAN FAMILY LIFE. 211 

his shoulders ; and whether he had lost his scalp 
or not, I cannot say, but he shielded liis head 
with a handkerchief, which he held tightly 
beneath his chin. This attitude gave him 
very much the appearance of an old woman. 
He wore, also, beaded moccasins, and exhibited 
a larger number of finger-rings than his com- 
panion. 

The squaw was dressed in a blue robe, which 
was held around her person by a broad leathern 
strap of unusual stoutness. Had the intentions 
of its manufacturer been carried out, this strap 
would doubtless have found its place in the 
harnessing of some Western team ; but it was 
now ornamented with a triple rov/ of brass 
buttons, and put to fairer use. Sand-Bar had 
ear-rings, armlets, big and little linger-rings ; 
her liair was parted and plaited, not wholly 
unlike that of any European ; her forehead 
was daintily streaked with lines of beauty 
and grace, in bright blue and flaming ver- 
milion. 

The little pappoose was dressed simply in 
vest and leggins. From each ear hung two 
rings with watch-keys attached, the rings being 



212 KANSAS. 

passed through both tlie lobe and tlie upper 
cartilage of the ear. Around its neck a brass 
medal was suspended. On examining the medal, 
I beheld the image and superscription of Queen 
Victoria ! 

Behind the family group there hung, on the 
sides of the tent, arrows, bows, pipes, furs, 
buffalo-skins, painted robes, goose-quills, eagles' 
claws and beaks, porcupines' spines, feathers, 
liair, beads, paints, and all else that an Indian 
counts valuable. The complexion of these 
Indians was of the darkest red, differing very 
much in depth of shade from the more civilized 
tribes. 

As w^e could not exchange intelligibly a 
single word, our intercourse was limited to 
looks and gestures. They examined my dress 
with solemn curiosity. The child began this, 
and my neighbour, the Torn Belly, followed it 
up. He pulled my coat-tails, drew^ out my 
neck-tie, pushed his finger up the same until 
he tickled my neck, altogether surveyed me 
thoroughly. Afterwards we fell to amuse- 
ment. I stuck a coin upon a stick, and invited 
the pappoose to shoot with his miniature bow 



PARTING FRIENDSHIP. 213 

and arrow. The voiuig: Sioux warrior entered 
into the game with zest, his father sustaining 
his arm, whilst he again and again shot only to 
miss the mark. At last he won his prize, gave 
the bit of silver into his mother's keeping — an 
oftice which she discharged by putting it into 
her mouth — and eagerly demanded a renewal 
of the practice. 

Through tlie half-hour during which 1 sat 
under their tent, these solemn figures never 
smiled, never indicated in the countenance the 
least presence of feeling. Even the child never 
laughed. When it triumphed with the bow, 
the father said, " Ila ! ha ! ha I" and the child 
said, "He! he! he!" but the countenances 
never relaxed their mournful expression. Every 
Indian that I ever saw, has exhibited the same 
strange characteristic. The red races are said 
to be cheerful, even jovial, amongst them- 
selves. Be this true or false, in the presence 
of strangers they divest themselves of every 
indication of the emotional, and leave upon 
the mind an impression of tiio profoundest 
melancholy. 

When I rose to go, my entertainers shook me 



214 KANSAS. 

warmly by the hand, and indicated their desire 
that I should repeat my visit, and especially 
remember to bring some tobacco with me the 
next time. Having passed behind the tent, I 
heard a foot-step following me. It was the 
little marksman, who, when I stopped, ran 
towards me, and seized my legs as if to detain 
me. Next came the Sand-Bar, rushing to the 
rescue, lest white man should steal red man's 
child. I surrendered that which it would have 
been a sore affliction to keep, and left, con- 
vinced, that whether under a white skin or a 
red one, a mother's heart is still the same. 

When I returned from my friendly visit to 
the Sioux to the riot and savage turmoil of the 
white settlement, I felt doubtful whether I had 
not left civilization behind me. 

With these Indian sketches, however, my 
description of the country and its inhabitants 
must terminate. Much indeed remains unsaid, 
w4iich is characteristic of Kansas and its home- 
life in town and country. But having yet to 
treat more particularly of the lierce struggle 
between slavery and freedom of which it has 



REFLECTIONS. 216 

been the theatre, and to supply some passages 
in its brief but stormy history, I must close 
this portion of the subject. It is impossible, 
however, to leave the consideration of its 
beautiful prairies and fertilizing streams, its 
busy settlers and active commerce, without 
giving expression to the mournful regret, that 
a country on which Nature smiles so beauti- 
fully, and towards wliich Providence has been 
so bountiful in the gifts of material wealth and 
natural advantages, should have been turned 
by the foul hand of man into a land of sorrow 
and suftering, bloodshed and crime. Now the 
widow wrings her hands, and orphans shed 
tears of bitterness over that ricli and lovely 
soil ; discord and anarchy have taken the place 
of law ; poverty and partial famine are seen 
instead of abundance ; wrong has been legal- 
ized, right subdued ; and, amid the heavings 
of an uncontrolled lawlessness, men have cast 
from them every moral restraint, and intro- 
duced a Reign of Terror, in which every base 
passion of man finds free exercise for its ener- 
gies of evil. 



216 KANSAS 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Controversy. — Shall Kansas be Slave ov Free ? — Slavery 
a Barrier to a Country's Advancement. — Influence of Slave- 
ry on Population, Education, Cultivation of the Soil, Price 
of Land. — A fair Competition would make Kansas Free. — 
Pecuniary and Political Interests of the South. — A fair Com- 
petition from the first denied. 

It is strange that men should fight so hard to 
introduce so bad a thing as slavery into a land. 

We have been so accustomed to dwell on 
the moral evils of slavery, the essential enor- 
mity of the system, and the wrongs which 
almost of necessity arise out of it, that we are 
apt to overlook that which otherwise we 
should not be slow to recognize, namely, how 
baneful the system is in its influence upon the 
white race, and how seriously it impoverishes 
a country, and retards the progress of its people. 

The celebrated Jefferson, himself a slave- 
holder, has left in his writings a strong testi- 
mony against the system in its reflex influence 



THE CONTROVERSY. 217 

Upon the masters, when he said, that "the man 
must be a prodigy who can retain his manners 
and morals undepraved" whilst living in the 
midst of such a system. " The whole com- 
merce," he writes, " between master and slave 
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous 
passions — the most unremitting despotism on 
the one part, and degrading submission on the 
other." As one of the chief founders of the 
republic, Jefferson, — in common with Wash- 
ington, Franklin, Madison, Henry, and all the 
leaders of his time, — regarded the abolition of 
what he calls " this great political and moral 
evil," as essential to the prosperity of the 
Union. 

But slavery is as great an economical, as it 
is a political or moral evil. The day on which 
I first set foot in a slave state, and a few hours 
before I crossed the border-line, I was convers- 
ing with a gentleman residing in Pennsylvania, 
whose views appeared to be Southern, but who 
expressed them in a tone of candour and mod- 
eration. *' Well," said he at length, ** this 
afternoon you will be in our Southern states. 

You expect, I dare say, to find the difierenco 
10 



218 KANSAS. 

the moment you cross the state-line. Which- 
ever way you look, you will calculate on see- 
ing nothing but what is bad. I should like very 
much to know, whether you find it as bad as it 
is most likely you expect." 

The truth is, I had no expectation to " feel 
the ditlerence the moment I crossed the state- 
line." I was not prepared for any visible sign 
of the geographical boundary being passed. 
How great, then, was my surprise to find that, 
in going into a state naturally richer, I was in 
effect entering one practically and visibly poor- 
er ; and tliat the enterprise and progress I had 
been accustomed to admire in the Northern 
states, were exchanged, on the passing of a 
geographical line, for lethargy and almost back- 
goipg. It was evident that I was in the midst 
of new conditions of society, and that new 
social conditions had brought with them a 
wholly new and widely different order of 
things, one that reached the length of chang- 
ing the entire aspect of the country. Had I 
met my friend afterwards, I must have confessed 
to many and great surprises ; and, had he asked 
me my opinion as to the "institution" after 



SLAVERY A VISIBLE BLIGHT. 219 

travelling throughout the Southern states, — 
passing the moral evil — I must have character- 
ized it, as a visible blight upon the entire 
economical and commercial, as well as social, 
existence of the South. 

Now in Kansas we Imve a country, immense 
in extent and most rich in its capabilities of 
production, till recently guaranteed to be free 
from this blighting influence as well as great 
wrong, but now thrown open to its unrestrained 
introduction. In the persons of their respective 
advocates, tlie rich soil of Kansas has become 
the battle-ground of the two systems, Slavery 
and Freedom. All who have interest in the 
progress of humanity, and many besides, ask 
anxiously, which is to be the victor ? Is slavery 
to find in it a new soil over which to extend its 
pernicious influence, or are the energies of free- 
men to make it a land which shall smile with 
the blessings of social happiness and general 
prosperity ? 

By all unprejudiced witnesses the fact is 
acknowledged, that slave labour in any tem- 
perate climate cannot hold its ground when 
brought into fair competition with free labour. 



220 KANSAS. 

As a system, slavery ever brings with it a 
heavy entail of disorder, slovenly negligence, 
stereotyped adhesion to old methods, disregard 
of all improvements, costly and unnoticed ex- 
penditure, and general impoverishment in all 
that pertains to the cultivation of the soil. 

This is not a matter of controversy. It is 
sufficient to see the *' thrown out" or " turned 
out" lands of Virginia, — thousands of acres 
now no longer cultivated, naturally far richer 
than the soil of Massachusetts, enjoying a more 
genial climate, adapted to the growth of more 
remunerative products, and in a state colonized 
at an earlier period, — and to compare the pov- 
erty of the one with the wealth exhibited in 
the other state, to be convinced of the terribly 
pernicious influence of the slave system on the 
agriculture of a country. Whether we illus- 
trate the contrast between a slave state and a 
free state, in the market price of the land, 
in the .difference of population, or in the rela- 
tive extent of unimproved soil, we arrive at 
the same conclusion, and gain sure indices 
of the prejudicial economic results of slavery. 

To cross the border from Pennsylvania to 



A FREE STATE AND A SLAVE STATE. 221 

Virginia, is to cross from land at forty-nine 
dollars, to land at twenty-one dollars per acre, 
as shown by the Government returns. In 
South Carolina, with its far-famed rice planta- 
tions, the returned value of the land is only a 
fraction over five dollars per acre ; in free Con- 
necticut, it is upwards of thirty dollars the 
acre. Or, passing to the states of the West, it 
would be sufficient for intending settlers in 
Kansas to glance at the neighbouring slave 
state of Missouri. They would there see the 
twelve southern counties in that state showing 
in the Government returns a value for their 
land of thirteen dollars per acre ; whilst its 
ten northern counties, bordering on free Iowa, 
although naturally less productive, support a 
population one-fourth larger ; that population 
has improved one-half more of soil ; has raised 
the soil it has improved to a value about 
one-half higher, namely, nineteen dollars an 
acre ; and is possessed, as a consecpience, of an 
assessed value in land two and a half times as 
large as that of the tiner counties in the south 
of the same state. It may further be mention- 
ed that, for 339 scholars in the public schools 



22 i? KANSAS. 

i;i the twelve southern counties, the ten coun- 
ties bordering on Iowa can sliow^ a school 
attendance of 2,329. Yet this is but the result 
of the proximity of freedom 

And if the slave system, as contrasted with 
free labour, is always accompanied by an infe- 
rior agriculture, a depreciated value of the 
land, a smaller population, a fettered com- 
merce, and a remarkable prevalence of almost 
barbarous ignorance, there are yet further many 
special reasons why slavery should not be per- 
mitted to introduce its paralyzing influence 
upon the free soil of Kansas. The climate is 
temperate ; hence those products for the raising 
of which negro slavery is sometimes claimed to 
bo necessary, are not grown on its soil. Slave 
labour, again, is unprofitable, except where the 
slaves can work in gangs, and can be kept 
within the view of the overseer. Hence, the 
Indian corn and otlier grain crops which are 
best adapted to the soil and climate of Kansas, 
are quite unsuitable for any but free labour. 
Further, of planters owning slaves, but a small 
number can be expected for many years to 
come to transport their stock into this new 



ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST SLAVERY. 223 

territory, whilst the remaining settlers, even 
from the South, are not necessarily slave-pro- 
prietors. 

From a consideration of facts such as these, 
the conclusion has been drawn, that Kansas 
left to itself (as is guaranteed by the Organic 
Act, passed in May, 1854) to determine its own 
institutions, and to legalize or not to legalize 
slavery, according to the will of the ninjority, 
must inevitably determine in fivour of free- 
dom. Some writers, even in this country, 
have with too much haste concluded, that so 
unequal a race as that between slavery and 
freedom cannot be long sustained ; that, with 
the pernicious fruits of slave labour before 
their eyes, the settlers in Kansas cannot long 
hesitate in their choice ; that the territory 
must soon, therefore, settle down, and make 
its application for admission into the confeder- 
acy with a constitution guaranteeing freedom. 
Hence these writers infer, moreover, that, if 
the strife existinci: in Kansas has disturbed the 
whole Union, the anxiety exhibited on both 
sides is very unnecessary, — at any rate on the 
part of the North, — seeing that very speedily, 



'224 KANSAS. 

by the working out of natural causes, Kansas 
must of necessity become free. 

Such a conclusion, reasonable as it may ap- 
pear, is founded on an imperfect view of the 
question- The question is not whether Kansaa 
ought to be a free or a slave state, in order 
best to secure its ultimate prosperity and the 
development of its resources ; but whether 
Kansas, free or slave, will most enrich those who 
are able to profit by its being opened to them. 
In a case like that of Kansas, the most profit- 
able will be always deemed, b}^ the majority 
of men, the most reasonable policy. And as 
the majority are to rule, the (piestion reduces 
itself to this : Is there not a large class to 
whom the extension of slavery is a source of 
profit? And if so, is that class in preponder- 
ating number? 

"Whilst it is perfectly true, therefore, that 
between slavery and freedom in Kansas, it is a 
folly on material, as much as it is a wrong on 
moral grounds, to choose the former, it is not 
to be forgotten that the self-interest of many 
may conflict with the requirements of right 
reason. In concluding that men can never 



SHALL kax.=;as be slavi! or free? 225 

commit the folly of making Kansas a slave 
state, we lose sight of the important fact, that 
the South has an immense interest in upholding 
slavery and in extending it over new territory. 
The history of slavery in the United States 
has always been ultimate loss for the sake of 
present gain ; an impoverished inheritance left 
to the child for the sake of immediate profit 
to the lather. To supply the depreciation con- 
sequent on the land being lefc almost to itself, 
and, therefore, not rising in value, it is of 
immense importance to the planters of the 
South, that the value of their slave-property 
should be maintained, and, if possible, increased. 
Though a fictitious source of wealth, a rise in 
the price of his slaves is of more importance 
to the planter than a rise in the value of his 
land, in proportion as he has more money in- 
vested in the one tiian in the other. To 
bring about this result there is no means so 
effectual as the extension of slave territory, 
which is, in effect, the opening of a new mar- 
ket for the slaves. 

Virginia alone is drawn upon by the states 

on the Mississippi, for as njany as ten thousand 

10* 



226 KANSAS. 

annually, — a rare encouragement, it must be 
confessed, for slave-breeding. 

Grovernor Wise is reported to have told the 
Virginians that, if California were made a 
slave state, the value of their negroes would 
rise from a thousand to three, or even five, 
thousand dollars. 

Every slaveholder, therefore, has a direct im- 
mediate interest in the extension of the area of 
slavery, although it should bring eventual ruin 
to the development of the country's resources. 
Add to this, that to gain fresh political power 
is of highest moment to the Southern interest. 
The ascendancy of the North is an event the 
slaveholder with reason dreads, as likely, if not 
to jeopardize his property, at least to curtail 
his privileges. Hence the favour with which 
he regards all filibustering, Southern annexa- 
tion, and extension of slave territory in general. 
Every new slave state admitted to the confe- 
deracy gives two more votes for slavery in the 
Senate, and a further addition to Southern 
votes in the House of Representatives, besides 
engaging another whole population in the sup- 
port of the Pro-slavery interest, More need 



INTERESTS OF THE SOUTH. 227 

not be said, to show that, if the voice of the 
South were to decide it, Kansas would be 
given not to freedom, but to slavery. 

But the truth is, the question extends itself 
far beyond the limits of Kansas. The ultimate 
fate of this territory will very materially influ- 
ence the subsequent history of territories be- 
yond, as w^ell as of states in its neighbourhood. 
With all its vehemence in the cause, Missouri 
is not strong as a slave state ; its northern por- 
tion is eminently unfitted for slave labour; 
and, if Kansas were to be made a free state, 
Missouri itself, having free soil on its north, 
west, and east, would probably ere long be- 
come to a great extent practically free. Again, 
with a free Kansas, freedom must be given of 
necessity to Nebraska, and whatever other new 
states may be formed north of the old com- 
promise line. Hence, Kansas is made the 
battle-ground of a great principle. " Squatter 
sovereignty," forced upon the country by the 
abettors of Southern views, must there work 
itself out to its legitimate issues ; and the 
issue with relation to Kansas wdll, to a great 
extent, determine the ultimate condition of the 



22S KANSAS. 

other vast territorial possessions of the Ame- 
rican Union. 

It is of yet greater significance, however, to 
remark, that the supposition that in Kansas the 
slave system must yield eventually to free 
labour, is unfounded, because, from its first 
settlement, two years ago, this fair competition 
between the two systems of labour has never 
been permitted. An equal race would, un- 
questionably, result in the triumph of freedom; 
but this has been from the first denied. The 
partisans of the South, insisting on their own 
views, have proscribed all opposition ; and 
possessing the aid and authority of the federal 
Government, have decreed that nothing shall 
be legal which does not favour their own side 
in this contest of principles. 

To reveal the base infamy of these trans- 
actions, — transactions in which the Govern- 
ment at Washington is as deeply im^Dlicated as 
the border-ruffians of Missouri — as well as to 
exhibit the revolting barbarity which has been 
associated with them, I invite attention to the 
brief history of the Kansas struggle contained 
in the following chapters. A consideration of 



A FAIB COMPETITION DENIED. 229 

its varied events will suffice, I think, to carry 
the conviction that a fair competition between 
the systems of slavery and freedom has not 
hitherto existed, and by those in power was 
never intended to exist, in Kansas. 



SdO KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Commencement of the Troubles in Kansas. — Its Organi- 
zation as a Territory. — Slavery prohibited previously by the 
Missouri Compromise. — Senator Douglas. — Conception of a 
bold Idea. — The Compact broken. — Passing of the Nebraska- 
Kansas Act. — Squatter Sovereignty. — Unskilled Legisla- 
tors. — The people to regulate their Domestic Institutions in 
their own Way. — Mr. Seward's Speech. 

Kansas dates the commencement of its troubles 
from the day on which the Act was passed by 
the Congress of the United States, which gave 
it a political existence as a duly organized 
Territory. This was in May, J 854. 

Its previous history in relation to slavery 
was very simple. In virtue of what is com- 
monly called the Missouri Compromise Mea- 
sure of 1820, the North conceded to the South 
that Missouri, which lies north of latitude 3G° 
30', should be admitted into the Union as a 
slave state; accepting as an equivalent the 
enactment, that in all the remaining portion of 



THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE. 231 

the Louisiana Territory lying north of that 
geographical line, slavery "shall be and is 
hereby for ever prohibited." Kansas is north 
of that line of latitude, which very accurately 
divides the northern from the southern half of 
the possessions of the United States. The 
question was finally, and for ever, settled by a 
strictly defined line, confirmed by many sub- 
sequent acts of legislation. And thus, for four 
and thirty years, Kansas had peace. 

Prominent among those of Northern politi- 
cians in America, who are devoted to Southern 
interests, is the Honourable Stephen Arnold 
Douglas. Mr. Douglas is a short, thick-set 
man, of dark complexion, determined in action, 
and vehement in speech ; but withal clever, 
full of tact and ability, and well fitted to carry 
whatever measure he may set his heart upon. 
He was," it is understood, in his earlier career a 
labouring man or mechanic; and, it is probable, 
set his heart upon the Presidential Chair. At 
any rate, he has made great steps towards the 
attainment of that coveted honour. Still a 
young man, he has risen from his lowly sta- 
tion, and now sits as Senator for Illinois. It 



232 KANSAS. 

would be a pleasing reflection, if this rapid 
elevation had taken place side by side with 
independent action and faithfulness to the 
great trust of one who rules his country. 
Probably Mr. Douglas may say, he has been 
faithful to his own convictions. Still, the 
truth remains : — A Northern man, he has 
espoused Southern politics; swimming with 
tlie stream of official favour, he has, in be- 
friending those in power, most befriended him- 
self; he has struck well for the highest honour 
America has to bestow, and, having achieved a 
great past, has opened for himself the way, 
should fortune still favour, for a great future ; 
finally, he may take to himself the credit of 
having made more noise than almost any other 
member of the Senate in the present Congress, 
and having done more by public acts to influ- 
ence his country — albeit that influence is to 
curse it — than probably any man of his time. 

Senator Douglas, as a trusty Servian t of the 
South and friend of the Administration, sat as 
Chairman upon the Committee of Territories. 
When, in December, 1S53, a bill was sub- 
mitted by Mr. DodgC; Senator for Iowa, for 



THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE REPEALED. 233 

the organization of the Territory of Nebraska, 
Mr. Douglas took the bill in hand in com- 
mittee, and returned it to the House amended, 
in the shape of a wholly new bill. The little 
alteration he had to suggest was nothing less 
than that the Compromise of 1820 should be 
revoked, or rather that it sliould be held to be 
inoperative and void, because Congress had no 
right to legislate upon the subject of slavery,* 
and that the new territories should be placed 
under that peculiar rule now known as Squat- 
ter Sovereignty. What rewards are great 
enough for the daring ingenuity that devised, 
and the energy that carried through the House, 
a measure like this, contemplating ends which 
minds cast in the ordinary mould would never 
have ventured even to conceive ! 

Such genius was irresistible. The man be- 
ing found who had the hardihood to say, " Let 
us break faith and we can carry all our own 
way," the scheme had not to wait for willing 
adherents. From thirty to seven-and-thirty 
voted at the ditYerent divisions in favour of the 

* In the territories, that is to say.— Am. Ed. 



234 KANSAS. 

measure ; from ten to fourteen were all who 
opposed it in the Senate. A majority was 
likewise found for it in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. And thus the bill, which broke a 
compact solemnly entered into, for which an 
equivalent had been received, and which had 
often been reaffirmed, — a bill which declared 
impossible that which was enacted " for ever," 
and had been acted upon for thirty-four years, 
became the law of the land. 

By virtue of another provision of the substi- 
tuted bill, the great tract of country formerly 
called somewhat indefinitely Nebraska, was di- 
vided into two distinct territories ; the more 
promising portion at the south, bordering on 
the State of Missouri, being organized under 
the name of Kansas, and the remaining por- 
tion, reaching as far north as the British pos- 
sessions, receiving the specific title of the 
Territory of Nebraska. This was sagacious, 
even as all the other provisions of the Act. 
To subjugate to the slave power a territory 
stretching so far north as the orignal Nebraska, 
would have been an almost hopeless task. To 
fight the battle on a comparatively narrow 



SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY INSTITUTED. 235 

strip of country in the south, with Missouri on 
its entire flank from south to north, was a task 
comparatively easy and fall of promise as to 
ultimate success. 

Thus was Kansas organized as a Territory of 
the Union, under the dominion of that new 
form of government known, in modern history, 
as " Squatter Sovereignty." In the settlement 
of all new territory, tliere is in most instances 
a period during which, the surveys being yet 
uncompleted, men are found to throw down 
their hatchet upon land to which as yet they 
liave no title. Such men are called squatters. 
Much almost inevitable evil springs out of this 
system, as has been shown in former parts of 
this volume. For purposes of mutual defence, 
societies are formed, understandings are come 
to, and thenceforward all is regulated in ac- 
cordance with " Squatter Law," and for the 
maintenance of " Squatter Rights." There 
exists little definable distinction between Squat- 
ter law and Lynch law ; and when men speak 
of holding land by Squatter right, they often 
mean what is otherwise expressed as Tomahawk 
right. 



236 KANSAS. 

Wlien General Cass first made use in the 
Senate of the expression "Squatter Sovereigns," 
he had reference to the legalization of power 
in the hands of the class of men above de- 
scribed. Uncertain as to their dwelling-place, 
unpossessedof titles to their so-called "claims," 
believing in law only so far as it favours them- 
selves, as unskilled in relation to the principles 
of justice as they are unscrupulous in the meth- 
ods of its adiniuistratidu, it migiit be reasona- 
blv sup[>os('tl that the S'piatters are not the best 
men to constitute the rulers of the land. Yet, 
according to the eidightened legislation of the 
last few years, the squatters have been made 
the sovereigns through most of the territories 
of the United States. 

Kansas is an example of the legitimate work- 
ing out of the much admired system of squatter 
sovereignty. By the Act organizing it as a 
territory, it was stipulated that, whilst the 
compact under which it had been guaranteed 
free from slavery since ISiJO was to be held as 
inoperative and void, the people were to be at 
liberty to " form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way." The squatter 



ECLIPSE. 257 

sovereigns, being very far from harmonious in 
their views of the peculiar domestic institution 
intended by this e.\pre<;sion, have been quite 
unable to agree as to iiow it is to be regulated, 
and have very naturally resorted to fighting, in 
order to decide whether slavery is to be legis- 
lated into, or excluded from, the territory. 

Mr. Sewanl, the Senator for New York, was 
not far frum the truth, wiu'ii, on the memora- 
ble night of the passing of the Nebraska-Kan- 
sas Bill, he closed liis fruitless opposition to it, 
by designating the act of that night as one that 
would mark an rra in American legislation. 
" We are on the eve of the consummation of a 
great national transaction — a transaction which 
will close a cvcle in the history of our coun- 
trv — and it is impossible not to desire to pause 
for a moment, and survey the scene around us 
and the prospect before us. • • • The sun lias 
set for tlie last time upon the guaranteed and 
certain lihrrties of all the unsettled and unor- 
ganized portions of the American continent 
tliat lie within the jurisdiction of the United 
States. To-morrow's sun will rise in dim 
eclipse over them." How long the obscuration 



238 KANSAS. 

would last, Mr. Seward continued to say, no 
human mind could foresee. One thing is cer- 
tain : the Senator's prophecy of a coming dark- 
ness has been verified in Kansas to the full; 
from the moment of the passing of that bill 
there has been nothing but darkness, thick 
darkness enwrapping the land; and tiie light 
has scarcely yet even faintly begun to dawn. 



MISSOURIAKS IN KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Misuouri takes an Interest in Kansa?.— Claims staked off. — 
Sovereignty taken up in the new Territory. — Bluo Lodges. 
— Slavery •• at whatever Cost of Blood aud Treasure.'' — Hos- 
tile Resolutions. — Indian Lands ceded. — Northern Immigra- 
tion.— The Challenge accepted.— Appointment of Governor 
and Judiciary. —Governor Reedt-T. — Lawrence founded. — 
Leavenworth and other Settlements. — Election of Delegate 
to Congress. — The Contest. — Missourian Invasion. — General 
Stringfellow's Programme of Operations.— Return of Gene- 
ral Whitfield. 



At the time when Kaiisa.s was thus organized 
and opened for settlement, the inliabitants of 
the contiguous State of Missouri had VLTyniuch 
their own way in the new Territory. For 
some time previously, they seem to have been 
possessed of the secret, that the Compromise of 
1S20 was to be broken, and that the squatter 
was to have the sovereignty of Kansas. Ac- 
cordingly, most of those living near the border 
took occasion, at some time or other, to cross 
the river, and •' stake off a claim." This was 



240 KANSAS. 

done in order to give them tlie sovereignty 
they desired. Each man, although his "stak- 
ing otr a claim" should have consisted merely 
in pacing out forty acres and leaving a notch 
with his axe on one of tiic trees, considered 
himself thereby constituted a squatter, and 
invested consequently with a share in the sov- 
ereignty of the future Territory. Each man 
also agreed to respect the rights of his brother- 
squatter. This is part of squatter law ; and is 
self-evidently the only condition on which to 
have one's own right maintained. *' If you 
will say I am lord of the soil, I will say you 
are; and so, we shall be all lords together, and 
none, who is not of our way, shall invade our 
sovereign right." Whilst each recognized his 
brother-squatter, it occurred apparently to no 
one to respect the rights of the Indian tribes. 
These not merely occupied the land, but had 
had the land specially assigned to them by 
the government in compensation for their re- 
moval from, and surrender of possessions, 
further East. Hence, the " claims," on which 
these inhabitants of Missouri rested their right 
to rule Kansas, had the additional detraction 



MISSOUKI TAKES UP SOVEREIGNTY. 1?41 

that the land which, although unpaid for, they 
called tlieir own, b-jlonged by public treaty to 
other peoph?. 

At about the period of the passing of the act, 
" blue lodges" and other secret societies were 
formed; and, throughout the year lS-51, nu- 
merous meetings were held in Western Mis- 
souri, at which tlie people were addressed by 
General David 11. Atchison, then Vice-pre- 
sident of the United States,* General String- 
follow, Dr. ]5aylcss and other?*. Thus a power- 
ful movement was organized, having for its 
object the settlement of KaiiJ^as by the people 
of Missouri, and the exclusion of all eujigrants 
from the North. 

At the earlier of these meetings, the people 
"pledged themselves, if the territory of Kansas 
be opened to settlement, to co-operate to ex- 
tend the institutions of ^lissouri [i. e. slavery] 
over the territory, at whatever cost of blood and 
treasured And, as they were ready before the 
opening of the territory, to shed their blood 



♦ Uc had been elected President of the Senate in place of 
W.R. King:. V. P.. in December, ISS?.— Am. Kd. 
U 



242 KANSAS. 

that slavery might be introduced, so at a later 
period, when settlers began to come from the 
North under the protection of Eastern Emi- 
grant Aid Societies, they encouraged each 
other by resolutions still more violent, and 
meetings more directly hostile in their char- 
acter. At the meetings of the " Platte Coun- 
ty Self-defensive Association" and other simi- 
lar organizations, the resolutions generally 
adopted v^ere to the effect, that protection 
should be afforded to none but Southern set- 
tlers in Kansas; that Abolitionists arriving 
there should be immediately removed from the 
territory ; and that all coming from any place 
North of Mason and Dixon's line were Aboli- 
tionists, and to be treated as such, whatever 
they might say to the contrary. 

In the mean time arrangements were made 
by the government for the cession of lands by 
the Indians. This was not effected in the 
ordinary manner, by a commissioner appointed 
to negotiate with the tribes on their own soil. 
But delegates from the Indians were taken pri- 
vately to Washington, a treaty negotiated with 
them, and information immediately telegraphed 



HOSTILE RESOLUTIONS. 243 

to the Missouri associations, which were ready 
at once to take up the ceded lands. Much 
complaint was made by the Indians afterwards 
in relation to these treaties. " The chiefs, head 
men, and counsellors of the Delaware nation" 
published also a protest against the acts of 
"their white brethren," in settling on lands in 
violation of the treaties made with them. But 
the Missourians had gained their end. They 
had, by their interest at Washington, obtained 
precedence of the Northern men in taking up 
the lands. They held large districts under 
squatter right ; and under the sovereignty of 
squatterdom, they considered themselves pos- 
sessed of authority to rule, if need were, the 
Indians out, and to legalize themselves in. 

There was activity, however, on the part of 
the free States. The State of Massachusetts 
especially showed itself energetic in promoting 
the settlement of Kansas by its own New Eng- 
land sons. In this, they accepted the challenge 
which the principle of the Nebraska-Kansas 
act offered, and showed themselves willing to 
run the race with the South, encouraged by 
the idea that the majority of the population of 



244 KANSAS. 

the new Territoiy was to decide the question 
of its institutions. Hence sprung the Massa- 
chusetts Emigrant Aid Society, and the Ameri- 
can Settlement Company of New York, as well 
as minor associations, known as the Octagon 
Settlement Company, the Vegetarian Settle- 
ment Company, and the New York Kansas 
League. The object of these associations was 
to assist settlers in Kansas by making arrange- 
ments for their transit, aiding them in the 
choice of locations, and especially enabling 
them, by an advance of capital, to erect saw- 
mills and other valuable appendages, for gener- 
al use. As a consequence of this agency, and 
tempted by the increased advantages of protec- 
tion and comfort which settlement held out 
under the operation of such a system, large 
numbers from the free States were induced to 
make Kansas their home. And the Territory 
still presents, in consequence of the peculiari- 
ties of its history, a contrast of population very 
unusual in the Far Western lands. On the one 
hand are those in great number who by their 
thoughts and feelings, habitudes and wants, 
indicate that they have been nursed amidst the 



NORTHERN IMMIGRATION. 245 

social refinements of New England or New 
York, and that Western life is yet strange to 
them ; and on the other hand, in constant con- 
tact with these, there are exhibitions of savage 
coarseness and brutality, which are happily 
rare even amidst the rough forest-life of the 
first pioneers. 

By the Organic Act, the Governor and Judi- 
ciary of the Territory were to be appointed by 
the President of the United States. Mr. An- 
drew H. Reeder of Pennsylvania received the 
appointment as head of the Executive, with 
Mr. Daniel Woodson of Arkansas, as Secretary. 
Samuel Dexter Lecompte was made Chief Jus- 
tice of the Territory, with Sanders N. Johnston 
and Rush Elmore as Associate Justices, and 
Isaacs and Donaldson respectively Attorney 
and Marshal. These were all appointed as un- 
flinching supporters of the Southern cause. 
Some of them have remarkably justified what- 
ever was expected of them. But Reeder, the 
Governor, appears from the first to have hesi- 
tated to yield himself as the instrument of giv- 
ing effect to the base designs of the Missourian 
party. He exhibited a caution and reserve. 



246 KANSAS- 

which were very becoming in one holding the 
highest civil power in the Territory, but which 
were very unpalatable to those who looked to 
him for plain-spoken, unshrinking partisanship. 
In his public acts, he seemed to aim at impar- 
tiality. In speech, he always avoided commit- 
ting himself, and as to any expression of his 
opinions or intentions observed strict silence. 
He probably found the abettors of the principle 
of Squatter Sovereignty to be men very differ- 
ent in character from that which he had anti- 
cipated ; and shrinking from allying himself 
with a border-ruffian horde, he soon became 
mistrusted by the party he was expected to 
support, and thus prepared the way for his 
dismissal from his office. 

The Governor arrived in the territory early 
in October, 1854. During the two or three 
months preceding, settlers had been entering 
at a rapid rate ; and at a pretty spot on the 
Southern bank of the Kansas river, some forty 
miles from its mouth, a number of Free-state 
emigrants had founded what is now called the 
City of Lawrence. In July, 1854, consisting 
of but a single log-hut ; in October, comprising 



APPOIXTMENT OF GOVERNOR AND JUDGES. 247 

a score, or thereabouts, of rough wooden tene- 
ments, witldn which its inhabitants had to 
make their bed upon the floor with bufialo-robe 
and blanket ; Lawrence has since risen to the 
dignity of a city, possesses the best buiklings 
in the territory, has its public edifices, supports 
several newspapers, has its literary society, is 
protected, moreover, by earthwork fortifications, 
has twice sustained a siege, and has achieved for 
itself a history and a name. At about the same 
time, the foundations w^ere laid of Topeka, 
Pawnee, Grasshopper Falls, and other places, 
which being the work of Free-state settlers, 
called forth the jealousy and threatened hostility 
of the opposing party. The Southern men who 
"moved into" Kansas, settled chiefly in Leaven- 
worth, and at Kickapoo, Atchison, Doniphan, 
and other places upon the Missouri, conveniently 
near to the State from which they principally 
came. Leavenworth, although now a " City," 
had not yet probably more than a dozen houses; 
but it became a great centre for land specula- 
tors, and, wdth its advantages as a point for 
commerccj has experienced a wonderfully rapid 
growth. 



24S 



KANSAS. 



Each organized TeiTit(;ryof the United States 
is permitted to be represented in Congress 
by one delegate, who lias liberty to speak, 
but possesses no voting power. One of the 
first duties of Governor Eeeder, on arriving in 
Kansas, was to appoint a day for the election 
of the Territorial Delegate. He appointed 
Nov. 29, divided the territory into nineteen 
electoral districts, and appointed judges for each 
district, who were to administer the oaths, 
especially that of actual residence, and to preside 
generally over the election. The candidates 
for the office were three : Mr. Whitfield, the 
nominee of the border counties of Missouri, a 
tall, determined-looking man, whose antecedent 
history belonged to the annals of Indian trading ; 
Judge Wakefield, a plain-spoken and thorough 
Free-soiler, a man who had been a long lifetime 
in the West, and possesses the respectable 
and comfortable appearance which belongs to 
the portly judge of olden time; and Mr. Flen- 
niken, theoretically an advocate of squatter sov- 
ereignty,who had accompanied Governor Reeder 
into the territory, and held views probably not 
flu* differing from his own. 



ELECTION OF DELEGATE TO CONGRESS. 249 

The election day came, and with it the first 
day of that open violence which has since 
plunged Kansas into so much misery. General 
Whitfield was the nominee of the people of 
Missouri. By fair means or by foul, he must 
be elected. The " Blue Lodge " gathered its 
forces, summoned to its aid its secret pass-words, 
signs, and grips, and speedily had obtained 
means, and mustered forces sufficient to control 
the election in the neighbouring territory. They 
could not but be successful ; for, although all 
the legal votes that were recorded in the terri- 
tory had been given undividedly to either of the 
other candidates, there were yet as many, and 
more than half as many more, friends of slavery 
who came to secure the victory to Whitfield. 
Independently, however, of this overwhelming 
number of illegal votes. General Whitfield had 
a majority. A very large proportion of the 
settlers did not f ote : others w^ere ignorant of 
Whitfield's true character, and voted for him. 
In Kansas he had declared himself to be in favour 
of the people deciding their institutions for 
themselves, according to the true theory of 

squatter sovereis^nty, — that is, A governing A. 
11^ ^ ' 



250 KANSAS. 

This gained him votes. Afterwards it proved 
that he was in favour of the institutions of 
Kansas being decided by the people of Missouri, 
—that is, B governing A. 

In this election the Missourians w^ere lavish 
in their provision for a thorough conquest. One 
might suppose that in a district like Marys- 
ville, which at the best could scarcely boast of 
more than half a dozen log-houses, 238 armed 
men were not needed in order to carry the poll. 
Yet 238 went thither, and recorded their votes 
for Whitfield, against seven residents voting for 
the other candidates. In all, the 1729 who were 
subsequently recognized by the Committee of 
Investigation as non-resident voters, appear to 
have spread their force over eight of the elect- 
oral districts. It is needless to say they con- 
quered. 

These invaders from Missouri made no con- 
cealment of their purpose in' visiting Kansas; 
they freely said that they intended to make 
Kansas a slave state. Where the judges were 
not compliant, they removed them, and extem- 
porized judges from their own number. Some, 
to make a show of residence, struck a stake 



INVASION AND CONQUEST. 251 

into the ground, or nailed a piece of paper with 
their name upon it to a tree, or entered their 
names upon lists as persons who meant to set- 
tie in Kansas at some time. All, if their ow^n 
statements be relied on, either had a *' claim," 
or intended to have a *' claim," or had some 
friend who had a " claim ;" and therefore all 
had votes. And a great portion not only had 
votes for themselves, but votes for friends also, 
left behind probably in Missouri, but who were 
going to settle in Kansas, and, wishing to have 
a hand in shaping the laws and institutions of 
the territory, had asked them to vote for them. 
In the majority of instances, it was sufficient 
to surround the approach to the balloting-box 
with a crowd of armed ruffians to deter the 
Free-state men from voting. A few days pre- 
viously their operations had been marked out 
for them by General Stringfellow. They were 
to " mark every scoundrel that was the least 
tainted w^ith free-soil ism or abolitionism, and 
to exterminate him ;" they were to have no 
" qualms of conscience as to violathig laws, 
state or national, the time had come when 
such impositions must be disregarded ;" they 



252 KANSAS. 

were to *' enter every election district in Kan- 
sas, in defiance of the Governor and his vile 
myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie- 
knife and the revolver ;" they were to " crush 
out the abolition rascals," and to " mind that 
slavery be established." '• It was enough that 
the slaveholding interest willed it, from which 
there is no appeal.' 

And that day, the 29th of November, 1854, 
the slaveholding interest, from wdiich there is 
no a'ppeal, achieved the first of its great bowie- 
knife victories, and witnessed the establishment 
of rifle-iTile in Kansas. 



ELECTIONS FOn THE LEGISLATURE. 253 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Election for the Territorial Legislature, March 30, 1855.— 
Spirit of the Press. — Preparations for an Invasion in Missou- 
ri. — Numbers of the Invading Forces.— The Hemp.— Inci- 
dents of Bowie-knife Voting.— Ninety out of every Hundred 
Votes Illegal.— Incidents at Bloomington.— Sheriff Jones' 
Exploits.— "Windows Smashed.— House Lifted.— Ballot-box 
Stolen. — Hurrah for Missouri I— Returning Home. — Pirati- 
cal Symbols. — Victory.— Protests against Elections.— Un- 
popularity of Governor Reeder.— Summary Punishment of a 
Newspaper Pres.s.— The Fraudulent Legislature Organized. 
— Exclusion of Free-state Members. — Two Months of Legis- 
lation. — Appointment of Officers.— Reciprocity. — Public 
Companies. 



The next event of importance in the history 
of Kansas was the election of members of coun- 
cil and representatives to form a Territorial 
Legislature. This was fixed for March 30, 
1855. 

During the interval, nothing was done either 
to rectify past illegalities, or to pacify the ill- 
feeling which thence resulted. The temper of 
the men of influence in Missouri may be gathered 



054 KAXSAS. 

from their public papers. The Squatter Sorer- 
cigjij Dr. Stringfellow's organ, published at 
Atchison, reflecrs the spirit of the Pro-slavery 
men as follows : — 

'• Mondav of last week a fight came off at 
Doniphan, Kansas territory, in which bowie- 
knives were used freely. The difficulty arose 
out of a political discussion, the combatants 
being a Pro-slavery man and a Free-soiler. 
Both parties were badly cut, and we are happy 
to state that the Free-soiler is in a fair way to 
' peg out,' while the Pro-slavery man is out and 
ready for another tilt. Kansas is a hard road 
for Free-soilers to travel.'' 

Asrain, in their editorial columns : — 

•We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of 
the Tribune, that they may exhaust an ocean 
of ink, their emigrant aid societies spend their 
millions and billions, their representatives in 
Conirress spout their heretical theories till 
doomsday, and his Excellency Franklin Pierce 
appoint Abolirionist after Free-soiler as our 
governor, yet we will continue to lynch and 
hang, to tar and feather, and drown every 
white-livered Abolitionist who dares to pollute 
our soil." 



■WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 255 

Wlien the 30th March came, the leaders of 
the Pro-slavery party were prepared for it by a 
thorough organization, extending through all 
the Western counties of Missouri, as a result 
of which they were enabled to pour into the 
Territory' of Kansas an invading force, in cora- 
parison of which that called out on the former 
occasion was small. 

The voters were marshalled into distinct 
bands under separate leadership. Those that 
were to exercise the suffrage -in more remote 
districts, mounted their horses and got ready 
their waggons a few days in advance. Every 
warlike equipment was provided, and on the 
day of election, the testimony from Lawrence 
tells us, they were seen upon the field, march- 
ins: to the sound of drum, with banners wavino: 
in the wind, plentifully supplied with arms and 
ammunition, the more warlike in appearance 
for a couple of field-pieces, and furnished with 
waggons and horses, tents, supplies of food, and 
every other necessity of a campaign. A white 
or blue ribbon or piece of tape in the button- 
hole, was the badge adopted in the districts 
near Lawrence. In the northern districts, the 



256 KANSAS. 

piece of hemp was the more customary mark 
of those who were ready to use the halter in 
proof of the soundness of their views. " Nei- 
ther give nor take quarter," and " All right on 
the hemp," were their two pass- words. 

As the number of illegal votes recorded by 
non-residents was 4,908, it may be estimated 
that this invading army numbered about five 
thousand men. The number of votes legally 
given, was 1,410 ; of w^iich about SOO were 
given to the Free-state candidates. General 
David R. Atchison, recently Vice-president of 
the United States, announced at a convention 
held a short time previously, that there were 
1,100 coming from his own county of Platte in 
Missouri; and "if that wasn't enough, they 
could bring 5,000 more ; that they came to 
vote, and would vote, or kill every Aboli- 
tionist in the Territory." 

Of course they conquered. The legal voters 
were for the most part driven away. Where 
they could not stuff the ballot-box, they stole 
it. Where the authorized election judges were 
strict in the performance of their duty, they 
held a pistol at their heads till they resigned, 



BOWIE-KNI^E VOTING. 257 

when they elected judges imiyrornvtu from their 
own number. All the fraud and brutality of 
the former election were re-enacted, only w^ith 
more undisguised shamelessness and daring 
violence. 

The testimony obtained b}^ the Committee of 
Investigation, is very full with relation to this 
election. There is little room for choice in 
selecting from the report of the Commissioners 
one or other of the districts as an example of 
the account they have to tell. For shortness, 
I will extract the report of the Doniphan pre- 
cinct in the 14th district, as a fair sample of 
the less violent of these electioneering speci- 
mens : — 

"The eveninsr before the election some 200 
or more Missourians from Platte, Buchanan, 
Saline, and Clay counties, Missouri, came into 
this precinct, with tents, music, waggons, and 
provisions, and armed with guns, rifles, pistols, 
and bowie-knives, and camped about two miles 
from the place of voting. They said they came 
to vote, to make Kansas a slave state, and 
intended to return to Missouri after they 
had voted. On the morning of the election, 
the judges appointed by the governor woulfl 



258 KANSAS. 

not serve, and others were chosen by the 
crowd. 

" The Missourians were allowed to vote with- 
out being sworn, some of them voting as many 
as eight or nine times ; changing their hats and 
coats, and giving in different names each time. 
After they had voted they returned to Missouri. 
The Free-state men generally did not vote, 
though constituting a majority in the precinct. 
Upon counting the ballots in the box, and the 
names on the poll-lists, it was found that there 
were too many ballots, and one of the judges 
of election took out ballots enough to make the 
two numbers correspond." 

A carefulness so praiseworthy, that the bal- 
lots should not exceed in number the aggre- 
gate of the names on the poll-lists, does not 
appear to have been practised elsewhere. It 
is legitimate to infer this, from the fact, that 
whilst the whole number of persons in the 
Territory possessing a vote, according to the 
census taken the previous month, was only 
2,905, the number of votes recorded on the 
Pro-slavery side alone was 5,427. Of this 
number, probably 530 were cast by residents. 
For every one legal vote, consequently, nine 



SHERIFF JONES* EXPLOITS. 259 

illegal votes were given. On the other hand 
the Free-state candidates received 791 votes, 
notwithstanding the intimidation which in 
some districts entirely prevented the Free- 
state men from exercising their rights. 

This election was the occasion of bringing 
into prominence one whose name has since 
been an important one in Kansas annals, — 
Sheriff Jones. This Samuel Jones, at that time 
post-master in Westport, Missouri, had the 
command of the five or six hundred Missouri- 
ans who were charged with the attack on the 
polls in the second district. The voting took 
place at Bloomington, a place chiefly inhabited 
by Free-state men, situated on the Wakarusa 
Creek, about twelve miles above Lawrence. 
The judges appointed by the Governor were 
Messrs. Burson, Ramsay, and Ellison, by whom 
the polls were opened in a log-house. The 
notable Jones, approaching the window of the 
log-house, demanded for his Missourian cohort, 
that they should be permitted to vote without 
being sworn as residents of Kansas. This was 
refused. The invading forces were then form- 
ed into small bands, and got ready their arms, 



260 KA.\SAS. 

of which they had broughi in ox-waggons an 
ample store. 

" They again demanded," the Congressional 
Committee reports, '• that the judges should 
resign ; and, upon their refusing to do so, 
smashed in the window, sash and all, and pre- 
sented their pistols and guns to them, threaten- 
ins: to shoot them. Some one on the outside 
cried out to them not to shoot, as there were 
Pro-slavery men in the house with the judges. 
They, then, put a pry under the corner of the 
house, and lifced it up a few inches, and let it 
fall again, but desisted upon being told there 
were Pro-slavery men in the house. During 
this time the crowd repeatedly demanded to be 
allowed to vote without being swo^n, and Mr. 
Ellison, one of the judges, expressed himself 
willimr, but the other two judges refused. 
Thereupon, a body of men, headed by Sherifif 
Jones, rushed into the judges* room vrith cock- 
ed pistols and drawn bowie-knives in their 
hands, and approached Burson and Ramsay. 
Jones pulled out his watch, and said he would 
give them five minutes to resign in, or die. 
When the five minutes had expired, and th«« 



PIRATICAL SYMBOLS. 261 

judges did not resign, Jones said he would 
give them another minute and no more. Elli- 
son told his associates that, if they did not 
resign, there would be one hundred shots fired 
in the room in less than fifceen minutes ; and 
then, snatching up the ballot-box, ran out into 
the crowd, holding up the ballot-box and hur- 
rahing for Missouri." This was followed by a 
complete row. The chief events were, the re- 
moval of the poll-books by Mr. B arson, the 
capture of the said books by Jones, the choice 
of two new judges, and the final and signal 
triumph of Sheriff Jones and his cohort of Mis- 
sourians, in the proportion of more than ten 
illegal to one legal vote. The incident which 
occurred on this occasion to one of the residents 
of the district, Mr. Mace, I have already in a 
former chapter narrated. 

A Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev Fred- 
erick Starr, who was an eye-witness of the 
fraud and intimidation practised at Leaven- 
worth city, and has published a statement of 
this and preceding events, describes a scene by 
no means rare on the occasion of this election. 
" Some four days later," he writes, " I was on 



262 KANSAS. 

my horse, returning from Platte city to West- 
on, when four waggons came along, and on the 
bottom sat six men. A pole, about five feet 
high, stuck upright at the front of the wag- 
gon ; on its stop stuck an inverted empty 
whisky-bottle ; across the stick at right angles 
was tied a bowie-knife ; a black cambric flag, 
with a death's-head and bones daubed on in 
white paint, and a long streamer of beautiful 
glossy Missouri hemp floated from the pole ; 
there was a revolver lashed across the pole, 
and a powder-horn hanging loosely by it. 
They bore the piratical symbols of Missouri 
ruffians returning from Kansas." The clergy- 
man then describes his surprise at being salut- 
ed by the driver of the waggon as a friend. 
BcG^rimed with dirt and with an eisrht or nine 
days' absence from home, he scarcely knew 
him. But the hand was held out, and to his 
pain he had to recognize a gentleman well- 
known and much respected in Platte City, be- 
longing to the legal profession, son of a dis- 
tinguished physician, " the most gentlemanly 
and talented Southerner whom he ever met in 
the South," with whom, moreover, he had 



PROTESTED ELECTIONS. 263 

been associated two months previously in can- 
vassing the county in favour of a Maine Liquor 
Law. He was the captain of his party ; they 
numbered over forty in all ; they had been to 
vote at Fort Riley, the most distant of the 
electoral districts, and had had a journey, 
therefore, of nearly three hundred miles ; they 
" had had a good time." The clergyman went 
his way. '• wondering how education, custom, 
interest, and sin could blind the eyes of God- 
like intellect, and turn to stone the noblest 
and most generous hearts." 

Thus was elected the famous Legislature of 
Kansas, which has since given laws to the ter- 
ritory, received the sanction of the Federal 
Government, become the fountain-head of 
legislative authority, and, backed by United 
States troops, had ridden rough-shod over the 
liberties and guaranteed privileges of the peo- 
ple, by perverting its power to the legalization 
of the darkest injustice and oppression. 

The returns from six of the districts were set 
aside by Governor Reeder, on account of mani- 
fest illegality, and the elections consequently 
in these districts were not confirmed. Had 



264 KANSAS. 

more than four days been allowed for protest- 
ing against the validity of the returns, and had 
all persons who might venture so to protest not 
been threatened with immediate hanging, it is 
reasonable to suppose that the Governor would 
have had to deal with other districts in like 
manner. Failing information, however, he 
was compelled to grant certificates of election. 
For the six districts disputed, he ordered new 
elections for May 22nd. " This infernal scoun- 
drel will have to be hemped yet," writes the 
editor of one of the Missouri journals, in com- 
menting upon this act of the Governor. In 
one of the contested districts, Leavenworth, 
the Missourian forces again carried the poll by 
violence, on the occasion of the new election. 
In the others, the Free-state settlers alone 
voted, and of course returned their own candi- 
dates. 

In the mean time Governor Reeder, — who was 
far too independent, as well as too honourable 
a man, to become the pliant tool of the Pro- 
slavery party, — became increasingly unpopular 
amongst his democratic friends. Threats of 
assassination were frequent, if he should dare 



PUNISHMENT OF A PRESS. 265 

to refuse his confirmation of the illegal elec- 
tions. Meetings were held, at which he was 
declared unfit to be Governor. One or two 
small attempts were made to elect a Governor 
in his place, whilst secret plotJ more eflacacious 
in their nature were laid, by which to bring 
about his removal. 

The fraudulent election of March 30th left 
the two parties in Kansas more widely sunder- 
ed than before. The Free-state people were 
exasperated through finding themselves merci- 
lessly trampled upon without a chance of 
redress. The advocates of slavery made no 
secret of what they had done : and, as the 
Missouri journals of that date abundantly show, 
openly exulted in the triumph Missouri had 
gained for slavery in Kansas. One newspaper, 
The Farkville Lwninary, itself an advocate of 
Pro-slavery principles, yet venturing to demur 
to the interference of Missouri in the elections of 
Kansas, was branded as abolitionist and incen- 
diary ; and on the 14th April, an armed mob 
came down from Platte City, to inflict sum- 
mary punishment. They destroyed the press 

and type, throwing^ them into the river, and 
12 



266 KANSAS. 

seized upon the editor, who escaped being 
lynched only through his wife refusing to be 
severed from him. 

Tlie illegal Legislature, being now invested 
with power, proceeded to organize itself, and 
to commence the exercise of its authority. It 
assembled, therefore, as ordered by the Gov- 
ernor, at Pawnee, the highest settlement up 
the Kaw river, close to Fort Riley, and com- 
menced its sittings on the 2nd July. One of 
the prime movers in the Missourian outrage, 
the Rev. Thomas Johnson of the Shawnee 
Mission, Vv^as elected President of the Council. 
The Speakership of the lower house was given 
to Dr. J. H. Stringfellow. There was one 
Free-state man in the Council, Mr. Conway. 
The legislature arranged that matter by expel- 
ling him, and giving his seat to his Pro-slavery 
opponent in the election. There remained one 
white sheep in the House of Representatives, 
Mr. Houston, returned by the settlers about 
Big Blue. That gentleman resigned his seat, 
having no wish to act in a Legislature illegally 
constituted. The five Free-state members who 
claimed their seats in consequence of the new 



TWO MONTHS OF LAW-MAKING. 267 

election ordered by the Governor in the con- 
tested districts, were excluded, the Legislature 
ruling that they were the wrong members, and 
that the Pro-slavery men were tlie right, to 
whom accordingly their places were given. 
Thus was the Kansas Legislature purged of all 
opposing elements. 

Elected by Missourian votes, and composed 
almost exclusively of residents of that State, 
notwithstanding that the law requires the dele- 
gates to be residents of Kansas, tlie Legislative 
Assembly sat during the months of July and 
August, 1855. For the sake of being nearer 
their home, they removed early in July, in 
spite of the veto of the Governor, to Shawnee 
Mission, on the border line of Missouri. There 
they legislated by day, and at Westport, in 
Missouri, two miles distant, they carried on 
their drunken revels at night. 

Being in haste to give a code of laws to 
Kansas, they transferred into a volume of more 
than a thousand pages, the greater part of the 
laws of their own State, substituting the words 
''Territory of Kansas" for "State of Missouri." 
In protection of slavery, they enacted far more 



268 KAXSAS. 

rigorous laws than obtain in Missouri, or than 
were ever before conceived of, making it a 
felony to utter a word against the institution, 
or even to have in possession a book or paper 
wliich denies the ric^ht to hold slaves in Kan- 
sas. Some of these laws have already been 
quoted in this volume. It will have been seen 
that for every copy of a Free-state newspaper 
which a person might innocently purchase, the 
law would justify that person's condemnation 
to penal servitude for two or five years, drag- 
ging a heavy ball and chain at his ancle, and 
hired out for labour on the public roads, or for 
the service of private individuals, at the fixed 
price of fifty cents per diem. So comprehen- 
sive did these legislators make their slave code, 
that by the authority they thus gave them- 
selves, they could, in a very short time, have 
made every Free-state man in the territory a 
chained convict, standing side by side, if they 
so pleased, with their slaves, and giving years 
of forced labour for the behoof of their Pro- 
slavery fellow-citizens. 

The Legislature proceeded also to appoint 
officers for the Territory. Even the executive 



RECIPROCITY. 269 

and judiciary were made to hold office from it- 
self; and a Board of Commissioners chosen by 
the Legislature, instead of the inhabitants 
themselves, was empowered to appoint the 
sheriffs, justices of the peace, constables, and 
all otlier officers in the various counties into 
which the territory was divided. 

Every member of succeeding Legislatures, 
every judge of election, every voter, must 
swear to his faithfulness on the test-questions 
of shivery. Every officer in the territory, 
judicial, executive, or legislative, every at- 
torney admitted to practise in the courts, every 
juryman weighing evidence on the rights of 
slaveholders, must attest his soundness in the 
interest of slaver}^ and his readiness to endorse 
its most repugnant measures. 

For further security, the members of the 
Assembly submitted their enactments to the 
Chief Justice for confirmation. This judicial 
confirmation was gratefully given; all they 
had done was declared legal. And the sheriffs 
and other local officers appointed by the Legis- 
lature, were equally ready with their aid in the 
execution of these unjust laws. 



270 KANSAS. 

There was a wonderful reciprocity in all 
this. Still more will this be evident, on the 
perusal of the hundred and forty pages of acts 
of incorporation, passed by the Legislative As- 
sembly, by virtue of which joint-stock com- 
panies are called into being, and charters given 
to railway, mining, insurance, land-holding 
and other companies, to toll-bridges, ferries, 
plank-roads, even universities, beyond all that 
the territory can require for many years to 
come. In these public trusts, the champions of 
the Pro-slavery cause have a monopoly of power 
for years conferred upon them. And, whilst 
the members of the Legislature have more 
than amply repaid themselves, they have also, 
by a judicious introduction of other names into 
their grants, bound to themselves four or five 
hundred individuals, who, as favoured grantees, 
have become interested in upholding those laws 
upon the legality of which their grants depend. 



CHANGE OF GOVERNOR. S?! 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Removal of Governor Reeder.— Appointment of Governor 
Shannon.— Character of the two Governors contrasted. — 
Shannon's Declaration of Political Views.— Organization of 
the Free-state Party.— Independent Action to form a State 
Government. — Public Sentiment among the Southern Party. 
—Outrages.— A Clergyman floated on the Missouri.— Mur- 
der.— Slackness of the Law.— Singular Use of Judicial 
Power. 

In consequence of the removal of the Houses 
of Legislature from the place he had designated 
as the capital, Governor Reeder declared their 
proceedings irregular and void. This height- 
ened the enmity his impartial and cautious 
conduct had already aroused against him. He 
had been many times threatened with hanging, 
shooting, stabbing, and other forms of death ; 
and he had been knocked down and kicked by 
General Stringfellow, while sitting in his office, 
and without having oftered any offence. His 
removal, however, was essential to the success 
of the Missourian party. To effect this, there- 



272 KANSAS. 

fore, they had used their influence with the 
federal Government; and, on a charge of some 
purchasers of land from the Kaw Indians, in 
the matter of which he appears to have been 
perfectly innocent, Andrew Reeder was, in the 
month of July, 1855, removed by President 
Pierce from the governorship of Kansas. 

Eeeder's successor in office was Wilson Shan- 
non, who arrived in the territory on the 1st of 
September. In their new governor, the slavery 
party had a man after their own heart. He 
had formerly been governor of Ohio, and had 
held other high positions. But he had also 
seen rough life, and learned rough practices, in 
California and Mexico ; and it; would be diffi- 
cult to conceive of a man more undignified in 
his whole conduct, or more ill-fitted by natu- 
ral qualifications for the responsibilities attach- 
ing to a country's rule. 

Shannon was the direct contrast to Reeder, 
as well adapted to satisfy the wishes of the 
Missourians, as his predecessor was the reverse. 
Reeder was so firm in purpose and in act, that 
it was vain to seek to turn him from his own 
convictions. *' Gentlemen," he said on one 



GOVERNOR SHANNON S SENTIMENTS. 273 

occasion, when, shortly after the election of 
March, he was waited u[»on by a Pro-slavery 
deputation, who informed him that he must 
grant their candidates certificates of election or 
die — " Gentlemen, two or three of you can 
assassinate me, but a legion cannot compel me 
to do that which my conscience does not ap- 
prove." Shannon, on the other hand, w^as so 
weak and pliable in the hands of those to w^hom 
he had surrendered himself, that they could shape 
his conduct perfectly at will. The first governor 
of Kansas, notwithstanding that he came as 
a man of the administration, was rem>arkable 
for his moderation and impartiality ; he wished 
apparently to put into practice the principle 
of squatter sovereignty, according to the pure 
and perfect ideal in which it had theoretically 
presented itself to him. The second governor 
saw in squatter sovereignty only another word 
for the domination of the slave power, — never 
so much as attempted to be moderate or impar- 
tial, and was prepared for the darkest tyranny 
that ever disgraced human rule. Reeder w^as 
ever reticent, and cautious of committing him- 
self. Shannon was open and free ; came 
12* 



274 KANSAS. 

committed, and never intended it should be 
otherwise. The first declined the invitations 
made to him when he assumed office in the 
territory, and thereby saved his independence, 
as well as kept himself sober, although from 
that moment he fell in Missourian esteem. 
The second governor of Kansas accepted the 
hospitalities and convivialities of the Missouri- 
ans in Westport the night before he entered the 
territory, displayed that love of good cheer 
which seems never to forsake him, and in the 
course of his speeches defined his intended 
policy in Kansas, with a point and plainness of 
speech which left his Missourian entertainers 
nothing to desire. " The enactments of your 
Legislature," he said, addressing the people of 
Missouri, *' are valid, and I have the will, and 
am clothed wnth the power, to employ what- 
ever force is necessary to carry them into 
execution ; and I call upon yoti (again, the 
people of Missouri), to sustain me in the dis- 
charge of this duty." " As to slavery," writes 
the Missouri Democrat in reporting his speech, 
*' he had no intention, he said, of changing his 
political faith ; he thought, with reference to 



FREE-STATE GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED. 275 

slavery, that as Missouri and Kansas were ad- 
joining States, it would be w^ell if their insti- 
tutions should harmonize, otherwise there 
would be continual quarrels and border feuds. 
He vas for slavery in Kansas, (Loud cheers.)" 
During the same month in wiiich Governor 
Shannon commenced his administration, the 
Free-state party, as an independent political 
body, w^as organized. From their new^ gov- 
ernor the Free-state people saw that they had 
nothing but high-handed oppression to expect ; 
to the Federal power which they had memori- 
alized in the hope of obtaining justice, they 
looked in vain for redress ; the law of the 
territory defined their opinions as felonious, at 
least if put into language, and condemned their 
acts as rebellious and treasonable. They, 
therefore, held their mass-meetings and con- 
ventions, passed resolutions without number, 
and, treating the fraudulent Legislature as spu- 
rious and consequently unpossessed of legisla- 
tiv^e authority, they availed themselves of the 
right of American citizens to assemble together 
in a peaceable manner to make provision for 
their own government. Thus w^as set on foot 



276 KANSAS. 

the Free-state organization, which, whether 
constitutional or otherwise in its mode of 
action, has brought itself into competition with 
the territorial authorit}^ and given rise to the 
double governorship, double judiciary, double 
legislature, doable militia, and in general, double 
claim to obedience, w4iich has constituted so 
peculiar a feature in the politics of Kansas. 

The Territorial Legislature had appointed 
Oct. 1, for the election of the delegate to Con- 
gress. The Free-state party, repudiating the 
acts of the Legislature, appointed Oct. 9 for 
the same purpose. General Whitfield, as be- 
fore, was elected on the one occasion, Missouri- 
ans again having the chief share in the polling. 
Andrev/ Reeder, the late Governor, was elected 
on the other, by a large vote from tbe Free- 
state population. The two candidates w^ere 
sent, therefore, to Washington, to contest the 
seat. Delegates were also chosen to represent 
the Free-state people in Kansas at a conven- 
tion for the purpose of framing a constitution. 
This convention met at Topeka between Oct. 
23 and Nov. 11, and framed a constitution em- 
bodying Free-state views, under which applJ 



ABOLITIONIST BLOOD. 277 

cation was made to Congress for the admission 
of Kansas into the confederacy as a State. In 
the following month the people voted upon 
and adopted this constitution ; in January, 
1856, they elected their Governor and other 
State officers, as well as a Senate and House of 
Representatives; on March 4, the State Gov- 
ernment was organized, and the Legislature 
met to adopt a memorial to the Federal Gov- 
ernment, and to adjourn till July; and at the 
same time they received the President's special 
message and subsequent proclamation, in which 
their movement was denounced as rebellion, 
and power was granted to Governor Shannon 
to employ the United States troops for the 
suppression of every movement which placed 
itself in opposition to the Territorial Legisla- 
ture, although that Legislature owed its exist- 
ence to force and fraud. 

Thus far the history of the eiiorts of the 
Free-state party to organize a State Govern- 
ment, in relating which I have anticipated by 
a little the narrative of the course of events 
generally in the Territory. 

Possessing a code of laws which would jus- 



278 KANSAS. 

tify the extermination of every Free-soiler in 
the Territory, and having obtained in Wilson 
Shannon a Governor ready from the heart to 
execute those laws, the Slavery party had little 
to interrupt its designs. The vow was often 
expressed that "Missouri river should run red 
with the blood of Abolitionists." The Squat- 
ter Sovercigji uttered the feeling of the South- 
ern party in words that admit of no second 
meaning : — 

"It is silly to suppose for an instant that 
there can be peace in Kansas as long as one 
enemy of the South lives upon her soil, or one 
single specimen of an Abolitionist treads in the 
sunlight of Kansas territory." 

Again, the editor of the same organ waxes 
yet warmer : — 

" We are determined to repel this Northern 
invasion, and make Kansas a Slave State ; 
though our rivers should be covered with the 
blood of their victims, and the carcasses of the 
Abolitionists should be so numerous in the ter- 
ritory as to breed disease and sickness, we will 
not be deterred from our purpose." 

During the autumn of 1855, many enormi- 



A CLERGYMAN FLOATED. 279 

ties were committed by the warm adherents of 
slavery. But none probably was more revolt- 
ingly cruel than their treatment of a Western 
preacher, the Rev. Pardee Butler. This gen- 
tleman unfortunately set foot in the violently 
Pro-slavery town of Atchison. His sentiments 
were known, and for the purpose of proving 
them, and obtaining a pretext for the intended 
assault, a number of the " most respectable 
citizens" requested his signature to some Pro- 
slavery resolutions. He declined to give it. 
This was his crime. He was hurried away to 
the river, painted, lashed to some logs, and 
floated down the rapid tide. 

But let the editor of the Sguatter Sovereign 
tell the tale in his own words, for he was no 
passive spectator of the scene, and his own 
account of what his own hands took part in 
doing, will assuredly not err on the side of ex- 
aggeration. 

"After the various plans for his disposal had 
been considered, it was finally decided to place 
him on a raft, composed of two logs firmly 
lashed together ; that his baggage and a loaf 
of bread be given him ; and, having attached a 



2^0 KANSAS. 

flag to his primitive bark, emblazoned with 
mottoes indicative of our contempt for such 
characters, Mr. Butler was set adrift on the 
great Missouri, with the letter R legibly paint- 
ed on his forehead. 

"He was escorted some distance down the 
river by several of our citizens, who, seeing 
him pass several rack-heaps in quite a skilful 
manner, bade him adieu and returned to At- 
chison. 

" Such treatment may be expected by all 
scoundrels visiting our town for the purpose of 
interfering with our time-honoured institutions, 
and the same punishment we will be happy to 
award all Freesoilers, Abolitionists, and other 
emissaries." 

Thus was a minister of the Gospel treated, 
against whom no heavier charge could be 
alleged, than that his opinions w^ere not 
favourable to the extension of slavery. Mr. 
Butler fortunately esca[)ed wdth his life, and 
from his own account w^e learn that the follow- 
ing were some of the mottoes emblazoned on 
his flag : — " The way they are served in Kansas." 
"Cargo insured, — unavoidable danger of the 
Missourians and the Missouri river excepted." 



A FREE-STATE MAN SHOT. 281 

" Let future emissaries from the North beware. 
Our hemp crop is sufficient to reward all such 
scoundrels." 

Two months later, Mr. Collins, who owned a 
saw-mill at Doniphan, was shot on similar 
political grounds, by a violent Pro-slavery man, 
named Patrick Laughlin. Pat came, it is said, 
originally from Ireland, and had rendered him- 
self famous by an exposure, as it was termed, 
of the Kansas Legion. Laughlin was aided in 
this attack by three or four armed associates, 
and Mr. Collins' sons were present, and sought 
to defend their father. There was a consider- 
able interchange of bowie-knife cuts and pistol- 
firing on this occasion, and the murderer himself 
was wounded. But the victim being a Free- 
state man, the law took no cognizance of the 
murder, and Laughlin found protection, and 
was rewarded by a situation in a shop in 
Atchison. 

This reference to the slackness of the law 
suggests the remark that, through the whole 
course of the Kansas struggle, the idea of hold- 
ing office for the administration of justice seems 
never to have entered the minds of those hold- 



282 KANSAS. 

ing the legal appointments in the territory. 
They were appointed — whether judges, mar- 
shals, sheriffs, or constables — by a certain party 
whicli through fraud had got into power, for 
the extermination of the other party. The 
power of arrest, the power of imprisonment, 
the power of hanging, was theirs only that 
they might arrest, imprison, or hang Free-state 
men. Hence, jnurderers, if they have only 
murdered in behalf of slavery, have gone 
unpunished ; whilst hundreds liave been made 
to suffer for no other crime tlian the suspicion 
of entertaining Free-state sentiments. 



MURDER AT MID-DAY. 283 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Murder of Dow. — The Guilty acquitted, the Innocent arrested. 
— The Midnight Rescue.— Rally to Arms. — The Wakarusa 
War. — Position of the Encampments. — First Siege of Law- 
rence. — Its Defence.— Amusing Incidents. — Mournful Events. 
— The Treaty of Lawrence. — Peace Festivities. — Disbanding 
of the Ruffian Forces. — Discontent. — Barbarous Treatment 
of Prisoners. — Murder of Mr. Brown. — Fiendish Cruelty. 

It Avas in the month of November, however, 
that the great outburst of legalized violence 
commenced, since which time the rule of 
bloodshed and crime has not ceased. On the 
21st of that month, in open day, a Pro-slavery 
man named Coleman, living at Hickory Point, 
shot dead his Free-state neighbour, Dow, as he 
passed his cabin door. Dow's body lay in the 
road, where it fell, till night, when Branson, at 
whose house Dow boarded, carried it home. 
The Free-state men were naturally indignant 
at the murder, and held a meeting on the sub- 
ject. Coleman, being alarmed, fled to the Gov- 



2S4 KANSAS. 

ernor. His murder being on the right side, his 
act was politically a work of merit. The Free- 
state men, however, followed him, and insisted 
on his arrest. The anthorities refused either 
to issue a warrant, or to examine the murderer. 
On the other hand, Jones, the Sheriff, obtained 
a warrant for tiie arrest of Branson, whose only 
offence was that he had shown respect to the 
dead body of Dow. Summoning a posse of 
about twenty-five men, including two who were 
parties to the murder of the morning, Jones 
rode across to the scene of the murder, and 
reaching it at night, entered the cabin of the 
unoffending Branson. Finding him in bed, the 
sheriff drew his pistol, cocked it, and holding 
it at Branson's breast, said, " You are my pris- 
oner, and if you move I will blow you through." 
The other men cocked their guns, and gathering 
around Branson, took him prisoner. As they 
were riding off with their prisoner, some Free- 
state men who had heard of the deed, came up 
to the party and rescued Branson, without, 
however, shedding blood. 

This transaction gave rise to what is known 
in Kansas as the " Wakarusa War." Jones, 



RALLY TO ARMS. 28S 

immediately after the rescue of Branson, wrote 
to Governor Shannon that an open rebellion 
had commenced on the part of the Free-state 
men, that he had been forcibly interfered with 
in the discharge of his duties, and that he 
expected the Governor to furnish him with a 
force of three thousand men, to aid him in the 
execution of the law. The Governor then 
issued a proclamation, calling on all to rally to 
arms in order to suppress the rising rebellion. 
He wrote to Eichardson, Eastin, and Strickler, 
Generals of thenew Territorial Militia, to collect 
all the forces they could command, and to place 
them at Sheriff Jones' disposal ; whilst all the 
border-counties of Missouri were canvassed and 
taxed to supply men and arms for the new 
campaign. 

The town of Lawrence, which had no share 
in the rescue of Branson, and whose only olFence 
was that it was inhabited for the most part by 
Free-state people, was declared by the Gover- 
nor to be in insurrection. By the Governor's 
own admission, not a single warrant was in the 
hand of any officer against any one of the citi- 
zens of Lawrence. But as the main object was 



2S6 KANSAS. 

to *' wipe out the Yankee city," the forces that 
were enrolled were gathered at different points 
around Lawrence. In this manner an encamp- 
ment was formed on the west, at Lecompton ; 
a second, under General Atchison's command, 
toward the north, on the opposite side of the 
river ; but the principal encampment was that 
on the eastern side, below Franklin, on the 
Wakarusa Creek, which has given its name to 
the campaign. 

From Franklin, which stands upon the edge 
of the prairie-level, a grassy slope descends 
towards the stream, from which it is separated 
by the thick belting of timber which skirts the 
creek. In this bottom and timber-land, the 
lawless forces were herded, as day by day they 
came in succession from the Missouri border- 
towns. All passers-by were arrested, so that 
Lawrence was shut oiT from communication 
with the east. Acts of assault were numerous ; 
drunkenness was universal and incessant. They 
possessed cannon, rifles, powder, and ammuni- 
tion of every kind, some of which had been 
forcibly taken by order of one of the judges 
from the United States arsenal at Liberty, ni 



THE WAKARUSA WAR. 287 

Missouri. " These men," as Governor Shan- 
non subsequently stated, "came to the Waka- 
rusa camp to tight ; they did not ask peace ; it 
was war — war to the knife." In another state- 
ment, referring to this rabble liost, the Gover- 
nor says with enthusiasm, " Missouri sent not 
only her young men, but her gray-headed citi- 
zens were there ; the man of seventy winters 
stood shoulder to shoulder with the youth of 
sixteen." In all, Governor Shannon admits 
that there were as many as fifteen hundred men 
under arms, collected by the 1st or 2nd Decem- 
ber. They continued to flow in after that date, 
and only waited until they felt themselves suf- 
liciently strong in number, to make the longed- 
for attack upon Lawrence. 

Within Lawrence, arming, drilling, fortifying, 
meeting-holding, and resolution-passing, went 
on continually amongst its Free-state inhabit- 
ants. Dr. Kobinson was appointed Commander- 
in-Chief, and urged ever moderation and caution ; 
General Lane, his associate in command, in- 
spirited his soldiers, and prepared them to stand 
boldly at the expected blow. Many strange 
incidents occurred during this anxious time. 



2SS KANSAS. 

Some were curious, as, for example, the con- 
veyance of the brass howitzer from Kansas City 
in a box, in the course of which, being *' stalled 
down" in ascending from the ford, a party of 
border-ruffians, who stopped to question, were 
induced by the Yankee-driver of the team to 
help him out of his difficulty, and to forego their 
examination of his questionable merchandize. 
No less amusing was the stratagem of two intre- 
pid Lawrence ladies, who, in order to replenish 
the supplies of gunpowder and rifle-caps, found 
space for two kegs of the former, and a quanti- 
ty of caps and lead, beneath the wide circum- 
ference of their fashionable dresses, and walled 
round with combustible, safely passed the ruf- 
fian patrol, and reached the city with their 
precious charge. 

But other events were of a sadly diffiirent 
character. Most mournful of all was the shoot- 
ing of poor Thomas Barber, and the distracting 
grief of his widow. For no fault of his own, 
except that he was on the road when General 
Richardson, Judge Cato, Judge Wood, Colonel 
Burns, Major Clarke, and some others were 
passing, he was shot. Burns and Clarke were 



INCIDENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. 289 

the two by whom the death-stroke was given, 
for they both shot him ; but as he continued to 
keep his saddle for some minutes, the others, 
judges and generals as they were, joined in the 
pursuit of his two companions and the sinking 
body, until one of these, the brother of poor 
Barber, unable longer to sustain the lifeless 
corpse, left it on the road, and the two, press- 
ing forward their horses, saved their lives by 
flight. And who was to arrest the murderers ? 
No one. A judge of the Supreme Court, hold- 
ing office by Federal appointment, was of the 
party, an approving spectator, if not an actor 
in the outrage. Higher legal sanction could 
not be given. 

Fortunately for humanity, Governor Shan- 
non, who is almost as weak as he is t3a'annical, 
became frightened of the lawless host he had 
collected around Lawrence, and finding Colonel 
Sumner unwilling to aid him without definite 
instructions from the Government, he concluded 
a treaty of peace with the leaders of the Free- 
state party. This was on Sunday, the 9tli 
December, twelve days after the issue of his 

proclamation of war. The treaty was signed 
13 



290 KANSAS. 

at Lawrence by Governor Shannon on the one 
hand, and Generals Robinson and Lane on the 
other. The following day, the people of Law- 
rence invited their late besiegers to a supper 
and dance, and celebrated the pacification by 
joyous festivities. The Governor, however, 
did not wait for these convivialities. To show 
liow true his heart was, and how friendly his 
feelings, he drank the health of every Free-state 
man that came into the Cincinnati House. As 
he went his way, with Jones and others as an 
escort, he is reported by Mr. Phillips the corre- 
epondent of the New York Tribune, to have 
explained hov/ his character was misappre- 
hended by the people of Lawrence. " Now, 
ge — entlemen, you — hie — you don't understand 
me. You all abuse me, but — hie — but it's be — 
because you don't know me. Get to know 
me right — hie — well, and you'll — hie — you'll 
find I'm a — hie — I'm a h — 11 of a fellow." 

The news of the pacification was received 
with much indignation by the rabble forces 
collected at the Wakarusa camp. Governor 
Shannon was accused of having played false, 
and many talked of lynching him. However. 



DISBANDING OF THE FORCES. 291 

the orders came from the Governor to disband 
the forces, and neither Atchison nor Stringfel- 
low durst lead them on to the attack of Law 
rence, much as they wished it, when not 
shiekled by the territorial authority. Above 
all, the whiskey was, as the Western men say, 
*' a'most gi'n out" — a circumstance which was 
of itself sufficient to cause the abandonment of 
the enterprise; and the cold had become so 
intense, that even their great camp-fires scarcely 
sufficed to make the exposure endurable. The 
consequence was that the camp on the Waka- 
rusa was broken up ; the forces retired in like 
manner from Lecompton and the left bank of 
the Kaw ; and the first campaign in Kansas had 
reached its termination. 

To those accustomed to more settled methods 
of government, it may seem incomprehensible 
that a town should be surrounded by a besieg- 
ing army, and should have more than fifteen 
hundred men placed under arms against it 
by the ruling power, when no crime had been 
committed against the State by any of its 
inhabitants, when not a single legal warrant 
was in existence against any of the people, and 



292 KANSAS. 

when they testified their readiness to give up 
to the proper officers any person against whom 
such warrants might be issued. Yet such was 
the position of Lawrence. The Committee of 
Investigation, after fully weighing all the testi- 
mony upon the subject, reported that they could 
see " no reason, excuse, or palliation" for the 
feeling of hostility evinced in this invasion of 
Lawrence. 

Of the gross cruelty which was practised 
against those of the Free-state men who fell 
into the hands of the officers of the territory, it 
may suffice to present one example out of 
many — that relating to the arrest of Dr. Cutler 
and Mr. Warren. I have heard very full 
accounts of this transaction, but prefer giving 
it in the words of the Congressional Commit- 
tee : — 

"They were taken without cause or war- 
rant, sixty miles from Lawrence, and when Dr. 
Cutler was quite sick.* They were compelled 

* The place of arrest was iu the neighbourhood of Doni- 
phan, where Dr. Cutler resided. He was returning home 
after a severe illness, from which he had endeavored to 
recruit himself by a stay at Dr. Robinsou's house in Law- 
rence. 



TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 293 

to go to the camp at Lecompton, and were put 
into the custody of Sheriff Jones, who had no 
process to arrest them. They vv^ere taken into 
a small room, kept as a liquor-shop, w^hicli was 
open and very cold. That night Jones came in 
with others, and went to * playing poker at 
twenty-five cents ante.' The prisoners were 
obliged to sit up all night, as there was no 
room to lie down when the men were playing. 
Jones insulted them frequently, and told one 
of them he must either • tell or swing.' The 
guard then objected to this treatment of pris- 
oners, and Jones desisted. G. F. Warren thus 
describes their subsequent conduct : ' They 
then carried us down to their camp. Kelly, 
of the SquaUcr Sovereign, who lives in Atchison, 
came round and said he thirsted for blood, and 
said he should like to hang us on the first tree. 
Cutler was very weak, and that excited him 
so that he became delirious. They sent for 
three doctors, who came. Dr. Stringfellow 
was one of them. They remained there with 
Cutler until after midnight, and then took 
him up to the office, as it was very cold in 
camp.' " 

Of the many acts of infamy which occurred 
during the short interval between the termina- 
tion of the Wakarusa War and the opening of 



294 KANSAS. 

the second campaign already described in the 
early chapters of this volume, I will only refer 
to one, which occurred in January, 1856 ; this 
was the murder of Mr. Brown, of Leavenworth. 
Mr. Brown's offence was, that he had rescued a 
Free-state man from the hands of a party of 
ruffians who were about to take his life. Whilst 
thus acting, a band of Kickapoo Rangers arrived, 
armed as usual v/ith their rifles and hatchets. A 
fight of some hours' duration ensued, notwith- 
standing that it was night ; wounds were given 
on both sides, and a Pro-slavery man, named 
Cook, fell in the encounter. After this, Mr. 
Brown, returning with seven others to Leaven- 
worth, was again attacked by the company of 
the Rangers, by whom they were taken prison- 
ers and carried into a shop in Easton. There 
some of the citizens of the place joined in the 
outrage. The Captain of the Rangers did his 
best for a time to protect Mr. Brown. At 
length, however, he left him, w^ien the crowd, 
infuriated by liquor, surrounded their victim, 
and taking their hatchets literally hacked him 
to death. The wound of which he died was a 
deep iiatchet-gash on the side of the head, in- 



phesidential moderation. 295 

flicted by a man named Gibson. Poor Brown 
lingered long enough after the fatal blow to 
suffer yet more exquisite refinements of cruelty, 
whilst the ruthless savages kicked him, jumped 
upon his fallen body, spat tobacco-juice into 
his eyes, and barbarously mutilated his body. 

This murder was again on the right side of 
politics, and no attempt therefore was made to 
bring to justice the perpetrators of the foul 
deed. Many, however, are well known. Some 
were officers of the law ; one of the most re- 
fined in cruelty has already been mentioned in 
these pages as the United States Deputy Mar- 
shal ; and others were of "the most respecta- 
ble" inhabitants of the place. 

It is difficult to believe that, after acts of 
such enormity, the President declared in his 
message on Kansas, that '^ no acts prejudicial 
to good order have occurred under circum- 
stances to justify the interposition of the federal 
government." 



296 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Change in Popular Feeling after the Destruction of Lawrence. 
— Retaliation. — Massacre at Osawatomie. — Personal Experi- 
ence. — Battles of Black Jack and Franklin. — Sack of Osa- 
watomie. — Road-side Horrors. — Hanging. — Repulsion of 
Northern Immigrants. — A Barbarous Wager. — Murder and 
Scalping. — The Atrocity Completed. — August. — Murder of 
Major Hoyt. — Burning of Pro-slavery Forts. — Colonel Titus 
Seized and Liberated. — Treaty of Peace. — Militia Called 
Out. — Proclamation of Rebellion, — •' The Army of Law and 
Order in Kansas Territory." — Second Fight at Osawato- 
mie. — General Lane's Free-state Army. — Expulsion of the 
Free-state Inhabitants of Leavenworth. — The President's 
Messages. 

The events described in the preceding chapters 
bring the history of the contest in Kansas 
down to the spring of 1856. The still more 
stirring events which succeeded have ah'eady 
been described in the chapters of personal nar- 
rative, with which this volume commenced. 
The later history of the territory claims a brief 
notice. 

The attack and burning of Lawrence wrought 



THE CAMPAIGN OP 1S56. 297 

a great change in popular feeling. Of this 
many evidences came under my owii observa- 
tion. " We will stand it no longer," was the 
substance of what I heard on every side from 
the Free-state adherents. Before I left, it had 
become the universal conviction, alike of the 
Pro-slavery and the Free-state party, that a 
civil war had fairly commenced ; and this convic- 
tion was shared in even by those in authority. 
The territory was placed, not under martial 
law, but under territorial law maintained by 
the United States forces ; and the well-mounted 
dragoons from Fort Leavenworth might be 
seen stationed at various points along the val- 
ley of the Kaw, to sustain the authority of the 
governor. At the same moment came the 
new^s from Washington of the outrage commit- 
ted in the Senate chamber upon the person of 
Mr. Sumner. I w^ell remember the effect this 
had upon many, who concluded that the rule 
of force and violence had been fairly inaugu- 
rated even in the highest places of the land, 
and w^as no longer restricted to the lawless in- 
habitants of the frontier. Bands of men under 
military command paraded the streets of Lea- 

13* 



298 KANSAS. 

venworth ; others guarded the points of egress 
from the city. They held lists in their hands, 
containing the names of Free-state men, whom 
they made rapid work of seizing and placing in 
confinement. The Committee of Investigation, 
although holding appointment from Congress, 
found itself compelled to interrupt its sittings. 
Every hour brought intelligence of some fresh 
deed of violence or wrong. 

The exasperation, however, wrought in the 
minds of the Free-state men, led to many acts 
of retaliation. Convinced that a civil war had 
begun, they ceased in many places to hesitate, 
and boldly met the sword by the sword, vio- 
lence by violence. The marauding bands of 
Pro-slavery men, who had been long scouring 
the country and committing inhuman outrages 
upon all who were politically obnoxious, were 
met by guerrilla parties on the Free-state side, 
whose repeating fire-arms frequently proved 
more than a match for the heavy, long-barrel- 
led Mississippi guns of their opponents. At 
Osawatomie a horrible massacre took place, of 
which the actual circumstances will probably 
never be known. I was at Leavenworth when 



THE SV/ORD MET BT THE SVv'OHD, 299 

it happened ; but as far as I could ascertain, a 
fight had occurred between half a dozen Pro- 
slavery nien and as many or more of the oppo- 
site party. Ever}^ Pro-slavery man w^as left 
dead, as well as three of the Free-state men. 
At the time when this took place, the spirit 
which pervaded the minds of both parties in 
that district, was one of war even to extermi- 
nation. As long as I remained in the Terri- 
tory, outrages and bloodshed were of daily, fre- 
quently much more than daily occurrence. It 
were easy to fill many chapters with the details. 

There was not unanimity, however, in the 
Free-state councils ; for, whilst one portion 
engaged in open warfare, especially with a 
viev/ to the recovery of stolen horses and other 
property, others* adhered to the last to their 
former policy of non-resistance, and held meet- 
ings, made speeches, and passed resolutions, 
condemnatory of the active measures of their 
brother Free-state men. 

Thus ended May, iS56, and June came in 
with a continuance of the same measures of 

* And much the larger portion, including al! the original 
Isaders of the Free-state party.— Asf. Er> 



SOO KANSAS. 

hostility and frequent collision. On the 2nd 
of June occurred the battle of Black Jack, near 
Palmyra ; on the night of the 4th occurred that 
of Franklin. Each of these terminated favour- 
ably to the Free-state men. On the 8th oc- 
curred the sack of Osawatomie ; its offence, 
like that of Lawrence, being that it v/as in- 
habited by Free-state settlers. This abomi- 
nable outrage was effected by some Missouri 
companies, which General Whitfield had or- 
ganized, and was making use of in various 
parts south of the Kaw^ Colonel Sumner was 
on the field, also, with his dragoons, during all 
the early part of June, endeavoring to restore 
order and prevent collisions. Why the attack 
was permitted, however, on the defenceless 
town of Osawatomie, does not appear. 

On the ]-oad in the neighborhood of West- 
port and Kansas City, outrages were of daily 
occurrence at the time I left the Territory. 
Companies of armed plunderers, under Captain 
Pate and other leaders, used to camp out near 
the Lawrence road, and attack all Free-state 
men who might fall into their hands. One 
ISIew England man, by name Barlow, they 



IIOAD-SIDE HORRORS. 



301 



proceeded to hang on the bough of a tree as 
an Abolitionist, and, with the rope around his 
neck, raised him from the ground. But one 
of their number induced them to relent, having 
extorted from the poor man, who had settled 
in Lawrence, a promise that he would leave 
the Territory within twelve hours ; and having 
also robbed him of his oxen, waggon, and 
goods. He, therefore, lived to tell the tale. 
But many were not so fortunate, and oftener 
than once or twice dead bodies were found 
dangling from the boughs of trees, or murdered 
and mutilated forms discovered by the bare 
road-side. 

Towards the end of June, the Pro-slavery 
men adopted the system of stopping all the 
parties of emigrants from the free States, and, 
after robbing them, sending them back whence 
they came. In the following month, the pas- 
sage through the State of Missouri was wholly 
interdicted to men of northern views ; armed 
forces were stationed and batteries erected on 
the river-side ; hence the only approach from 
the north was by a tedious route through Iowa 
and Nebraska. 



302 KANSAS. 

Individual instances of barbarity continued 
to occur almost daily. In one instance, a man 
belonging to General Atchison's camp made a 
bet of six dollars against a pair of boots, that 
he would go out and return with an Abolition- 
ist's scalp within two hours. He went forth 
on horseback. Before he had gone two miles 
from Leavenworth on the road to Lawrence, 
he met a Mr. Hops, driving a buggy. Mr. 
Hops was a gentleman of high respectability, 
who had come with his wife, a few days pre- 
viously, to join her brother, the Rev. Mr. Nute, 
of Boston, who had for some time been labour- 
ing as a minister in Lawrence. The ruffian 
asked Mr. Hops where he came from. He re- 
plied, he was last from Lawrence. Enough ! 
The ruffian drew his revolver and shot him 
through the head. As the body fell from the 
chaise, he dismounted, took his knife, scalped 
his victim, and then returned to Leavenw^orth, 
where, having won his boots, he paraded the 
streets with the bleeding scalp of the murdered 
man stuck upon a pole. This was on the 19th 
August of last year. Eight days later, when 
the widow, who had been left at Lawrence 



ACTS OP ATROCITY AND RETALIATION. 303 

sick, was brought down by the Eev. Mr. Nute, 
in the hope of recovering the body of the mur* 
dered husband, the whole party, consisting of 
about twenty persons in five waggons, was 
seized, robbed of all they had, and placed in 
confinement. One was shot the next day for 
attempting to escape. The widow and one or 
two others were allowed to depart by steamer, 
but penniless. A German incautiously con- 
demning the outrage, was shot; and another 
saved his life only by precipitate flight. 

To narrate the history of these summer 
months, would be to present a succession of 
similar atrocities, committed under the name 
of law, and " with a view to maintain public 
order in the territory." 

During the month of August alone, besides 
the brutal homicide just mentioned, there oc- 
curred another in which a company of Geor- 
gians, in their vengeance against Mayor Hoyt, 
fairly riddled his body with their bullets. This 
took place at a fort on Washington Creek, 
which was one of a number of military posts 
that had been erected in different parts, and 
garrisoned by southern bands. The murder 



304 KANSAS. 

led to retaliation. The Free-state men burned 
the fort, and the Georgians took to flight. 
They also attacked the post at Franklin, 
which, after a keen contest and some loss, was 
surrendered in like manner, the cannon and 
arms being left in the hands of the Free-state 
men. The next day, Colonel Titus's house 
near Lecompton, which was another of the 
southern head-quarters, was attacked, and after 
loss of life on both sides, Titus himself and 
eighteen others were taken prisoners. These 
acts of the Free-state party were those of men 
exasperated by the presence of murderous 
bands, who were daily putting into execution 
their threats of extermination, who did not 
hesitate at times to shoot their prisoners, and 
who were carrying on a ceaseless system of 
rapine and murder. Neither did the Free-state 
people thus resort to arms, until they had 
asked and been refused their personal protec- 
tion at the hands of the federal troops, which 
were stationed in the neighbourhood for the 
ostensible purpose of preventing violence and 
restoring good order in the territory. 

The successes of the Free-state party led 



ADVANCE OF atciiison's ahmy. 305 

Governor Shannon to conclude a second treaty 
at Lav/rence, which stipulated for peace, and 
led to an exchange of prisoners. No sooner 
had peace been made, however, than hostilities 
were resumed. The following day General 
Richardson had called out the militia to put 
down the Free-state men ; and, three days 
later, the Governor proclaimed the territory to 
be in a state of insurrection, and rallied all to 
arms. General Atchison, who had been re- 
cruiting in Missouri, was advancing into the 
territory with 450 men. This number increas- 
ed in a few day to 1,150 rank and file, a large 
proportion mounted, and well supplied with 
cannon and arms. The whole body was form- 
ed into two regiments under Generals Atchison 
and Reid, and assumed the name of " The 
Army of Law and Order in Kansas Territory." 
Plundering parties continued to commit almost 
incredible outrages. Fights occurred when- 
ever opposing parties met. Atchison's army 
moved towards Osawatomie, and, before the 
month of August had expired, that small town 
had for a second time been subjected to a mer- 
ciless attack. The disparity in number was 



306 KANSAS. 

overwhelming, and, after a hot contest of sev- 
eral hours, Captain Brown's little Free-state 
band was finally driven out from the wood in 
which they had sheltered themselves. The 
besiegers then burned a considerable portion 
of the town ; but the loss on the side of the 
southern army was very large. Three waggon- 
loads of dead and w^ounded were removed from 
the place. 

The presence of this southern army of exter- 
mination, which effectually blockaded the 
country east of Lawrence, and prevented sup- 
plies from reaching the Free-state settlements, 
called out General Lane from Lawrence, who 
again put the Free-state stronghold under 
defence, and organized forces by which he 
drove back the southern army to Missouri. 
Then ensued attack and repulse, victory and 
defeat, and all that chain of hostile events 
which have been rendered familiar to us by 
the accounts of the operations of the two con- 
flicting armies. Leavenworth at this time be- 
came a scene of daily outrage. The Free- 
state residents — many of them merchants in 
f\\Q place, having valuable stocks of goods, and 



PUBLIC FREEDOM NOT TO BE INFRINGED. S07 

possessed of property besides — were literally 
driven out of tlie place, a hundred at a time, at 
the point of the bayonet, some escaping by the 
boats, others seeking refuge in the woods and 
ultimately at the fort. Their property fell for 
the most part into the hands of the adminis- 
trators of "law and order;" and some who 
escaped by the river had not the means to pay 
their passage out of the scene of strife. 

Thus commenced September, for I have only 
related the events of a single month, as an 
illustration of the wild anarchy and blood- 
thirsty fury which reigned throughout the 
summer of 1S56. In viev/ of these events, it is 
almost an insult to read the message of Pre- 
sident Pierce upon the condition of Kansas. 
Mark how careful he is to sustain the authority 
of the party which assumed to be that of "law 
and order," and to guard against all infringe- 
ment of the liberty to do wrong : — 

'* But it is not," he said in his first Special 
Message, " the duty of the President of the 
United States to volunteer interposition by 
force to preserve the purity of elections either 
in a State or Territory. To do so would be 



308 KArcsAS. 

subversive of public freedom. And whether a 
law be wise or unwise, just or unjust, is not a 
question for him to judge. If it be constitu- 
tional — that is, if it be the law of the land — it 
is his duty to cause it to be executed, or to 
sustain the authorities of any State or Territory 
in executing it, in opposition to all insurrec- 
tionary movements." 

President Pierce regarded the monstrous 
code of Kansas as constitutional, and therefore 
to be backed by his executive power, because it 
is, by the enactment of a false Legislature, the 
law of the Territory. Could he have forgotten, 
that no law is constitutional which violates the 
Constitution ? Now, the Constitution of the 
United States guarantees every citizen liberty 
of speech ; the laws of Kansas make speech in 
favour of freedom a punishable crime. The 
Constitution guarantees freedom of the press ; 
the Kansas code forbids on pain of imprison- 
ment the printing of so much as an " inuendo" 
that might be dangerous to slavery, and Kansas 
mobs, aided by federal troops, raze to the ground 
and burn to ashes Free-state printing-offices. 
The Constitution guarantees trial by jury for 
every accused person ; the law of Kansas forbids 



BLESSINGS OF LAW AND GOVEKNMENT. 309 

Free-state men to sit as jurors ; and the idea 
of a jury is in practice treated as a nullity 
The Constitution guarantees liberty, and prom- 
ises protection in the exercise of the electoral 
franchise ; in Kansas every election that is 
recognized by the central Government, has 
been carried by rifle and revolver. The Con- 
stitution guarantees the sacredness of personal 
right, promises to guard the citizen's property, 
and to protect his liberty of person and of 
residence ; in Kansas, men are driven by hun- 
dreds from their intended homes, robbed of 
their possessions, held in forced confinement, 
compelled to leave the land, for no crime but 
that of holding Free-state views, or that of 
being natives merely of northern soil. 

And when a second and a third time the 
President was appealed to by the Free-state 
people in Kansas to exercise his power for the 
prevention of wrong, they only received the 
same cold answer. They were referred to the 
laws, — laws which condemned many of them 
to death, and all to imprisonment and penal 
labour. They were told to value the political 
blessings they enjoyed. 



810 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Governor Geary. — His Pacific Proclaraatioa. — Its Interpreta- 
tion. — Release of State Prisoners on Bail. — Capture of 
Ninety-eight Free-state Men. — Their Condition in Prison. — 
Revolting Inhumanity towards the Prisoners. — Sufferiuga 
of the Settlers. — Sickness, Cold, Hunger, and Orphanage. — 
The Present and the Future of Kansas. — Action of Congress. 

In the autumn of 1856, Wilson Shannon was 
succeeded in the governorship of the territory 
by its present Governor, John W. Geary.* For 
the Free-state inhabitants the change could not 
bo for the worse, such was the character of the 
man from whose tyranny, and at the same time, 
despicable weakness, they were thus relieved. 
Some were led to hope for peace and protec- 
tion ; and many in this country may have 
inferred from the apparently pacific tone of the 
new Governor's proclamation, that a brighter 

*Who resig-oed in March, 1857, and is succeeded by 
Robert J. Walker. — Am. Ed. 



GOVERXOR GBARY. Sll 

day was at length dawning upon Kansas. 
Such anticipations have not, however, been 
realized. The Governor's pacific proclamation 
must be interpreted on the same principles 
with the President's pacific messages. He 
promised to quell insurrection; but the law 
defines as insurrectionary every organized ac- 
tion of the Free-state party. He promised to 
enforce laws ; but law is only another name for 
oppression. He promised, if the people would 
obey, to restore peace, tranquillity, and order ; 
but the price of that peace is a surrender to the 
slave power. And that he might make the 
people obey, he said he should feel justified in 
calling out the militia, employing the federal 
troops, and using the utmost firmness and 
authority in his power. And very much in 
accordance with his proclamation thus inter- 
preted, the new Governor has acted 

Dr. Robinson and his fellow-prisoners, who 
had been confined at Lecompton since the 
month of May, on a charge of usurpation of 
office and high treason, were indeed admitted 
to bail in the month of September, notwith- 
standing the strenuous attempt made to defer 



312 KANSAS. 

the case until April, when the prisoners would 
have been eleven months in confinement before 
their charge was brought up. The Free-state 
Legislature, which met in July, and was dis- 
persed by Colonel Sumner at the head of the 
United States dragoons, endeavoured again to 
meet in the spring of the present year, but 
were prevented by the Governor. But would 
we know what spectacle Kansas has presented 
during the rigour of the past winter and under 
the present governorship, let the voices from 
the political prisons of Lecompton answer. I 
have before me an address to the American 
people, signed by ninety-eight Free-state men, 
who were then suffering a long and wretched 
imprisonment for their political offences. 

After narrating at length the particulars of 
their capture, shortly after the arrival of Gov- 
ernor Geary, they proceed as follows : — 

** We come now, at last, to speak of a sub- 
ject too immediate, too vital, to admit of our 
passing it unnoticed, yet too full of horror to 
dwell upon. We allude to our treatment and 
condition since our confinement here, any de- 
scription of which must come far short of the 



V 



THE POLITICAL PRISON AT LECOMPTOX. 313 

terrible reality. A few of our guard will ever be 
remembered by us with emotions of the deepest 
gratitude for their kindness ; but the greatest 
portion of them are drunken, brawling demons, 
too vile and wicked for portrayal. Times 
without number have they threatened to either 
shoot or stab us, and not unfrequently have 
they attempted to carry out their base and 
hellish threats. Several nights have the guard 
amused themselves throughout their different 
watches, by cursing us, throwing stones at the 
house, breaking in glass, sash, &c. Two large 
cannon stand planted but a few yards from our 
prison, and tv/o nights has the match been 
swung several hours in the hands of the gun- 
ners, with orders to discharge both, heavily 
loaded with shot and slugs, upon us, in case our 
friends should come in sufficient force to avenge 
our wrongs. These, however, are only slight, 
compared with other insults and sufferings 
heaped upon us daily. Most of us are poorly 
clad — few have any bedding. Our prison is 
open and airy, yet small ; without, surrounded 
with unearthly filth ; within, all is crawling 
with vermin, all, everything, mixed with misery. 
When youths, we listened with doubt to the 
dark stories of the Jersey prison-ships, and the 
Black-hole of Calcutta, never dreaming that 

we should at last be a sad, actual part of their 
14 



314 KANSAS. 

counterpart ! More than once have we proplie- 
sied to one another, that all would not leave 
this charnel-house alive. Our assertions have 
been verified; several have been dangerously 
sick, one has died. His name was William 
Bowles, and formerly from St. Charles, Mo. 
He laboured with us nobly for our God-given 
rights, and it was with feelings of unutterable 
sorrow that we parted with him. After an 
illness of two days, he left his sufferings this 
morning, at one o'clock. Before his death, we 
requested the officers of the guard to have him 
removed to a place of quiet. We talked and 
became tired, yet nothing was done. Last 
night all the physicians in town were sent for, 
and each refused to come. Dr. John P. Wood, 
who is also judge of probate and committal jus- 
tice, could not come, ' because he was sick ;' yet 
he was seen that evening, as well as the follow- 
ing morning, doing hard labour. Others had 
reasons, we know not what. Dr. Brooks was 
sent for five times ; but as he was at a card- 
table playing poker, he swore he ' would not 

leave the game to save every Abolitionist 

in the territory.' 

*♦ Sickness and death of the most horrid forms 
are in our midst ; the scrapings of Pandemo- 
nium surround us; we can see nothing left us 
but an appeal to the last tribunal, with God as 



SICKNESS, COLD, AND HUNGER. 815 

our judge, and our jury the great American 
people." 

But it is not in the prison alone that the 
unoffending settlers of Kansas have had to 
endure fearful suffering. A gentleman from 
Ciiicago, who visited the territory in the winter 
on behalf of a committee of relief, whilst he 
confirmed the preceding statements, reported 
further that he found many of the settlers 
reduced by these acts of political oppression to 
the very verge of starvation. In one district 
he met with forty fiimilies entirely destitute, 
some of the fathers being confined in the Le- 
compton prison ; their food green pumpkins 
and green Indian corn, grated by the hand. In 
another he found a family of five motherless 
children, the eldest only seven years old, in a 
state of starvation, their father a prisoner at 
Lecompton. In a third he discovered a hun- 
dred families, so destitute of clothing that they 
were ashamed to be seen. Again, a neighbour- 
hood where nearly every person was sick ; and 
another place where a family had subsisted for 
four weeks on nothing but w^olves' meat. This 
gentleman visited all the settled portions of 



316 KANSAS. 

Kansas, and everywhere he had visible proof 
that sickness and hunger had followed, as is 
usual, in the train of war. 

Looking at the prospects of Kansas in the 
future, it affords some encouragement to know 
that the territory has been relieved of some 
few of those who were foremost in plotting 
strife and upholding the Reign of Terror. The 
present Governor has not permitted himself to 
be the tool of the border-ruffian leaders, in a like 
manner with his predecessor. Lecompte, " the 
Jeffreys of the territory," has been removed 
from the office of Chief Justice.* Colonel 
Titus, who with Buford commanded the south- 
ern bands from Georgia and other States, and 
filled the land when I was there vv^ith the terror 
of his deeds, has recently left the territory to 
join Walker in Nicaragua, and thus resume his 
former career as a filibusterer. Many besides, 
throughout the struggle, who have gone from 
the South to engage in the Kansas war, have 
become disgusted when they w^itnessed the 



* It was so stated with authority at the close of Pierce's 
administration ; but the rumor proved to be unfounded. — Am. 
Ed. 



FUTURB PROSPECTS OF KANSAS. 317 

reality, and have in a better spirit returned to 
their homes. 

Nevertheless, peace is not yet in Kansas, 
and the question is not yet decided whether 
the new territory shall be an accession of soil 
to slavery or to freedom. Right has not yet 
taken the place of wrong, nor liberty been 
substituted for despotic oppression. At Wash- 
ington there are indeed hopeful signs in rela- 
tion to the action of the Federal Government. 
The Committee on Territories has presented to 
Congress a report, which recommends the re- 
pudiation of the acts of the Kansas Legislature 
as those of a spurious body, and the repeal of 
the whole Kansas code, which has given sanc- 
tion to the bloodshed and crime under which 
the territory has groaned. This measure, 
which, if adopted, would be a first great step 
towards remedying the wrongs of Kansas, has 
obtained a majority in the House of Represent- 
atives. On the other hand, whilst these sheets 
have been passing through the press, the intel- 
ligence has arrived of the bill having been re- 
jected in the Senate. How the contest will 
end, time alone can show. 



318 KANSAS. 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOK. 

April 13, 1857. 
All the federal offices in Kansas continue to 
be filled by the ring-leaders of the conspiracy 
against free-labor. Some of them are guilty 
directly in their own persons, and all are guilty 
indirectly, as conspirators and abettors, before 
and after the fact, of the murder of citizens 
whose only offense was a confession that they 
preferred that slavery should not be established 
in the territory. Let the reader not slight this 
statement. It would be a disgraceful and 
wicked thing for one to make such assertions 
without adequate ground of perfect conviction 
of their truth. If undeniable or if convincing 
testimony of their truth is readily within his 
reach, no man who respects himself, and who 
would live with a clear conscience, can fail to 
regard them gravely, anxiously, indignantly. 



SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 319 

It is a simple, undeniable, indefensible fact, 
that the new President of the United States not 
merely still refrains from executing justice in 
Kansas, but also that he has renewed and ex- 
tended the countenance, patronage, honors, and 
friendship of the government to men who regard 
it as a merit and a matter of boasting that, for a 
political purpose, they liave shot, in cold blood, 
and in the back, citizens of several independent, 
sovereign free states, of whom they knew no 
harm but that they intended to vote against the 
establishment of slavery in territory belonging 
to those states, and of which they w^ere resi- 
dents and land-owners. 

With a possible exception in the new secre- 
tary, there is no man now in Kansas recognized 
by our federal government, including its judicial 
branches, to have any official authority there, 
who is not a notorious plotter and probable 
pledged conspirator to prevent an honest 
action of the law of Squatter Sovereignty, 
as it is defined by the President and all its 
friends. 

There are plenty of Free-state men from the 
North, capable and respectable, who have 



320 



KANSAS. 



always belonged lo the Democratic partv, and 
who supported Mr. Bachanan in the hope that 
he would be just to Kansas, but not one such has 
been appointed to office. 

The Hon. R. J. Walker has been selected 
to succeed Governor Gearv, who resigned his 
oSce, either because, as his enemies say, he 
considered his life in danger from the Pro- 
slarery faction, or, as his friends sav. because 
the President refused to sustain him in taking 
any measures inclining towards justice. Gov- 
ernor Walker has been recently known to the 
public chiefly for his efforts to have a railroad 
built from his state of Mississippi throush a 
district at present occupied chiefly by non- 
slavehoiding farmers in Texas., and thence a 
thousand mUes across a desert country to that 
portion of California which is nearest to the 
cotton-soils of Sonora, and which it is thought 
might be made a slave state even without this 
assistance. He asserts that he desires to have 
the free-soil party in Kansas treated with fair- 
ness. He is the only one at present holding 
office for Kansas, who has ever made this pro- 
fession. He remains yet in Washington, attend- 



SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOK. 321 

ing to some necessarr private business : he is a 
business man, and was a subscriber for one rail- 
lion dollars' worth of the stock of the Grand 
Southern California Railroad Company. Nev- 
ertheless, it is thought he may take a look at 
the territory in May. 

Under a process of law, which the President 
recognizes as constitutional and valid, many 
good citizens, accused of resistance to the 
tyranny of an organization made by the Mis- 
sourians for the purpose of establishing slavery 
in Kansas, have been torn from their fami- 
lies, and held in unwholesome confinement 
until some died and all were greatly impover- 
ished. Of the many hundred boasting robbers 
and murderers of Free-state seulers, none yet 
are punished or even rebuked by the officers 
appointed to execute justice in the name of the 
majesty of the people of the confederate states. 

The body of men who were last year ap- 
pointed by the partisans of slavery for the pur- 
pose of preventing the success of any move- 
ments unfavorable to the establishment of 
slaveiy in the territory, and whose acts for 
that purpose are laws to the President of the 



322 KANSAS. 

United States and all those whom he appoints 
to office, have recently pretended that they 
were willing to give an opportunity to the 
people of the territory to indicate, by a vote, 
what they demanded in their government. The 
instrument of this pretension — -just now w^armly 
commended by the Northern friends of Slavery 
extension, because it is the first act of this 
body which assumes to be intended to carry out 
their petted principle of Squatter Sovereignty — 
is the same which ex-Governor Geary vetoed on 
the ground of the absurd inconsistency of its 
provisions with its alleged purpose. It pro- 
vides for a census of the citizens of the territory 
who were resident in it, on the 15th March, 
when no emigrants from the Free states would 
be likely to have recently become resident, but 
when, as it has now been made manifest, mul- 
titudes would have just come in by land from 
Missouri. From the census thus taken by offi- 
cials, every one of whom is a sworn enemy of 
freedom, a voting list is to be made up, which 
is to be revised by sworn friends of slavery. 
The territory is then to be formed into nineteen 
voting districts, the size, and shape, and rela- 



SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 323 

tions of which, to each other, and to Missouri", 
are to be determined by men who are ashamed 
of nothing which has been done to subdue the 
free-soil party of the territory in the last two 
years. The number of delegates who are 
to represent the people of each district, is to 
be proportionate to the population returned by 
the special census. This proportion, not very 
difficult for a business man to ascertain, is to be 
declared by the Governor and Secretary, ap- 
pointed by the President, and as this is the only 
duty connected with the election assigned to 
the governor, it is evident that the " Legisla- 
ture" had some misgivings that the friends of 
Mr. Buchanan, in the Free states, were speaking 
the truth when they declared that he was dis- 
posed to do the fair thing with Kansas. 

Finally, the votes are to be taken, not by 
ballot, but viva voce, by vocal declaration, so 
that the slavery party may not be voted against 
by one man who is not willing to make himself 
known as a free-soiler to the land-officers, who 
are to settle disputed claims — and there are 
comparatively few claims which are not dis- 
puted — these land-officers being all men com- 



324 KANSAS. 

mitted to, and identified with, the conspiracy, 
to establish slavery on the soil of Kansas. The 
inspectors of election are to be men similarly 
pledged or sworn to disregard the rights of the 
free-soilers, and by such trusty hands, the vote 
is to be recorded, and returned. The whole 
process, in short, is in the hands of the same 
unscrupulous miscreants, who have been pro- 
tected in every crime of which the reader has 
read in this book, by the present federal judi- 
ciary. It has been often reported, of late, that 
the scandalous laws enacted last year by the 
Legislature, established by Missouri in the ter- 
ritory, have been repealed under the concilia- 
tory policy of the session of this year. Certain 
laws which it would have been impracticable 
to attempt to execute, have been repealed. It 
yet remains a legal felony for any man in the 
territory to order a book, such as this, for in- 
stance, to be sent to him. Any one who offers 
to receive a free-soil newspaper, is liable to five 
years imprisonment. No conscientious free- 
soiler is eligible to sit upon a jury; and, in 
general, no practicable means of harassing, 
persecuting, and silencing, those who would 



SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 325 

act effectively against the establishment of 
slavery in the territory, are left unprovided for. 

And, yet, it is very plainly declared by Gov- 
ernor Walker, after long consultation with the 
President, pending his acceptance of the gov- 
ernship, that he will attempt to carry out these 
laws, and force the people to accept this tyran- 
nical usurpation of authority as a constitutional 
republican government. He believes, we are 
told, that it will be impossible to establish 
slavery in Kansas, because of its ungenial cli- 
mate, (though it is milder than that of Virginia) 
therefore we are to believe that he will not 
lend himself to the schemes of his old friends, 
who have shrunk from nothing to conquer 
those who are opposed to its establishment, and 
if the foolish people from the North will only 
kiss the hand that smites them, and lie quietly 
under the heel that crushes them, he has confi- 
dence that he will restore peace and order in 
the territory. 

What of their rights as men and as citizens ? 
What of justice? What of squatter sover- 
eignty ? What of the honor and faith of the 
nation? Not one word. 



326 KANSAS. 

The hope that constitutional liberty can be 
maintained in America, now rests on the integ- 
rity of the independent state governments in 
decharing, demanding, and securing the rights 
of their citizens. 

It is impossible, if the policy of the new 
administration is to be judged from present 
symptoms, that the thinking citizens of each 
state in which men can yet afford to think 
freely, should not before long ask themselves : 

" What are the delegated, and what the 
reserved rights of this state ? Why should it 
remain in union with others for whose conve- 
nience and satisfaction its citizens are forced to 
relinquish, on common ground, their funda- 
mental rights — rights, the free use of which is 
essential to the preservation of a decent and 
civilized state of society ? Is it from a craven 
devotion to political tranquillity we allow these 
rights to be suppressed, systematically, formally, 
and year after year, and administration after ad- 
ministration, suppressed ? Is it from pride in 
holding our state part of a Great Nation ? Have 
we no patriotic duty but to keep men of our 
own party in office ? 



SUPPLEMENT BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 327 

*' What is the value of the federal constitution 
to us, if, in ourtenitories, more than half our peo- 
ple can be deprived of the rights to which those 
who made the Constitution declared all men, 
everywhere, to be justly entitled, and which 
they fought a long, desperate, and bloody war to 
secure?" 

It is the crime of a coward and not the wis- 
dom of a good citizen to shut his eyes to the 
fact, that this Union is bound straight to disas- 
trous shipwreck, if the man at the helm main- 
tains his present course. 

The prophetic mind of Jefferson, uncon- 
sciously but clearly described the process by 
which we have suffered ourselves to be brought 
to our present perilous condition. 

*' Is this the kind of protection we receive in 
return for the rights we give up? 

'* Our rulers will become corrupt, our people 
careless. A single zealot may commence per- 
secutor, and better men be his victims. It can 
never be too often repeated that the time for 
fixing every essential riglit on a legal basis is 
while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. 
From the conclusion of this w^ar, we shall be 



328 KANSAS. 

going down hill. It will not then be necessary 
to resort every moment to the people for sup- 
port. They will be forgotten and their rights 
disregarded. They will forget themselves but 
in the sole faculty of making money, and will 
never think of uniting to effect a due respect 
for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which 
shall not be knocked off before the conclusion 
of this war, will remain on us long; will be 
made heavier and heavier till our rights shall 
revive or expire in a convulsion."* 

" The time to guard against corruption and 
tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold 
on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the 
fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and 
talons, after he shall have entered." t 

* Notes on Virginia. London, 1787, p. 269. 
t Ibid., p. 197. 



s 



/^, 



